


Intelligences: Artificial or Otherwise

by Seaward



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, DADT Repeal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Identity, M/M, NaNoWriMo, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:17:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 65,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5901535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seaward/pseuds/Seaward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantis returned to Pegasus, and Rodney dedicated himself to the life of the mind. He didn't think anyone would notice his work with the Alternate Reality Viewer or care about his side project training a couple of bots.</p>
<p>Of course, bots, people, and other intelligences have ideas of their own...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intelligences: Artificial or Otherwise

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to Elayna for reading and improving. Any remaining mistakes are mine, as I can never resist tinkering on each pass.

It was past midnight, little as that meant on Atlantis. Rodney had trouble caring that he shouldn't test the device alone. In the past he could have cajoled Radek out of bed to work or teased John into joining him as a lark, but it hadn't been that easy in the year since they returned to Pegasus. Truthfully, Rodney hadn't felt as close to either man since Atlantis had returned to Earth three years ago. When Jennifer left him and stayed on Earth, Rodney rededicated himself to the life of the mind. It was what he did best.

If he wanted to optimize the use of his mind and put all his energy into a greater understanding of Atlantis and the science of the Ancients, then he couldn't let others' lack of dedication hold him back.

Logging every step he took, Rodney checked the functionality of the Alternate Reality Viewer (ARV). He checked the bolts that held the jumper-size device to the floor and the insulating layers that made the inside only half the volume of the interior of a jumper. The external monitor ran on Atlantis power and showed the same neutral and inactive readings it had when they discovered the ARV (while sitting in San Francisco Bay with three active ZPMs and international orders against testing anything). The internal monitor was blank, as were the smooth walls that Rodney presumed would show views of alternate realities once activated. There was no way to fully test the internal components until someone with an active ATA gene was sealed inside to start it up. According to the limited Ancient documentation, power for all but the external monitor would be channeled from the interface between dimensions as soon as the ARV activated.

Rodney figured he could test the device tonight without even a power blip to alert anyone that he'd gone ahead on his own. Depending on what he learned, he could either share the source of his information or carry on with his own investigations. After all, the machine was only designed to let him spy on himself. It was his own genius that should make his activities the best source of information in any alternate universe.

Checks complete, Rodney climbed inside and closed the hatch behind him. It sealed with a pop. The air was still and absolutely silent around him. For a moment he felt an ocean pressing in and flooding his crashed jumper. Then the floor heated to his body temperature and while not soft by any means, it had a little more give to it than the polyethylene it resembled. He lay down with his stomach on the smooth floor of the plain white compartment and pressed the manual start button on the front wall.

Nothing happened.

Perhaps the device had to be primed or initialized mentally before the manual controls could function. Many technologies on Atlantis operated that way. What the viewer displayed would be guided by mental control anyway, so Rodney had prepared himself for that. He rolled to his back and thought "on" while focusing on himself as a genius and problem-solver. He wanted to see and learn about other versions of himself that were dedicated to their work and focused solely on their intellectual achievement.

There was no mechanical hum or electronic buzz. Both walls and the ceiling lit up with views of Rodneys working alone. One was inside this same ARV viewing other images, and wasn't that recursive? Another was buried deep in the wiring beneath the control chair. A third was typing frantically on a laptop, but the viewpoint didn't include the screen. Rodney thought at that image, trying to shift the angle to show that alter ego's actual work. Instead all three images flipped to other Rodneys working hard on various devices, but nothing Rodney could readily learn from. All the views were silent, and when Rodney wished for sound, the views flipped instead. Now only one Rodney was working, on the water supply system, while the other two sat quietly on their beds staring into space. They might have been thinking profound thoughts, but Rodney could only see them, not read their minds. They didn't look particularly inspired or on the verge of discovery though. This time, Rodney mentally requested the views to change, and they did.

After hundreds of images of his hard working selves or those lost in their own thoughts, Rodney's head began to ache. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he was thirsty, hungry, and ready to use the bathroom. He tried to think the machine "off," but the three displays just switched to showing different Rodneys. Rolling onto his stomach again, he tried the manual shutdown button. Nothing happened.

Prying open the panel, Rodney found several wires and crystals disconnected. He berated himself for not checking that before starting the machine, when he had access to all the tools he'd left outside. Maybe it would have been better to wait until morning and bring in fresh eyes, even if no one else could understand everything he did, Radek or even John might have thought to check what he'd overlooked. As it stood, Rodney had no option but to try connecting wires with his bare hands without shutting down power to the system.

First he dried his hands on his jacket. Then he thought better of it and pulled off the jacket to use the sleeves as gloves. It was frustrating to handle wires that way. A couple of times he dropped wires, and his connections came out far below his usual standards. Connecting to the crystal components proved almost impossible. They required pinpoint accuracy.

Rodney uncovered his hands so he could guide the wires to their precise targets on each crystal. As long as he avoided touching the tips of the wires or their contact points, he should be okay. He had to hurry, because his hands were already becoming unsteady with the onset of hypoglycemia.

Just when Rodney thought he would finish, something sparked. Rodney's hands both jerked as a sudden flash of heat burned them. It wasn't just an electric shock. His hands were instantly seared from finger tip to wrist. Pain and heat. A sudden loud noise assaulted his ears. Seconds passed before Rodney realized he was screaming. There was no cold water. Nothing to ease the burn. Rodney fell back onto the floor, cradling his hands close without touching. There was nothing he could do, and no one knew he was in trouble.

His head pounded. Pain raced up his arms from hands to neck. Too much. Everything hurt.

The images surrounding him changed to injured Rodneys. All lay flat on their backs, two alone on what appeared to be infirmary beds. One was in an orthopedic bed like the one in Rodney's quarters with the same thin white blanket. It was dark around that Rodney, but there seemed to be someone sitting in the shadows at the end of that bed. Rodney couldn't make out details through his pain and the darkness of the image.

Rodney's brain gave in to its own darkness and let him pass out to avoid the pain.

*

John swung by the infirmary first, but Rodney had already been released. Carson's blank expression and intensified brogue did not encourage further questions.

Pounding on Rodney's door produced no answer. John recalled the sight of Rodney unconscious but clearly in pain when he was pulled from the silent machine. He looked like someone pulled back from hell.

Pleading with Atlantis finally forced the doors open. John stepped inside to see Rodney unconscious in bed with some robot bug attached to his chest and another just beside his head. Each was nearly a foot long and segmented like a sow bug. They emitted a faint mechanical hum but did not react immediately to John's appearance.

John pulled his sidearm and whacked the machine from Rodney's chest first. It flew across the room to the far wall and landed with a crash and a thump.

Rodney jerked up to sitting with a loud, "What!"

That left the bot on his pillow clear for John to knock it across the room as well.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Rodney shouted.

John kept his sidearm trained on the now quiet machines, ready to shoot holes in them at any sign of activity. He tapped his radio, "Sheppard here. I need Lorne, Zelenka, and Beckett to McKay's room immediately. Possible medical or technology emergency."

Rodney was cradling his head cautiously in bandaged hands. His eyes were closed tight and his forehead wrinkled in pain. His earlier shouts had faded to quiet muttering in clipped Canadian tones. "This had better be a bad dream. If I'm awake and some quick draw military commander just smashed my latest experiment then my wrath will be heard across the city—as soon as I can hear myself think over the pounding in my head. Furthermore, if said city let that deranged air-headed flyboy sweet talk his way into my room, then—no I'm not quite out of my mind enough to threaten the city—but I will find a way to effectively lock my door even if I have to install a portcullis with mechanical counterweights to keep biased Ancient systems from ignoring my programmed instructions and playing favorites."

It was good that Beckett arrived then, because John wasn't sure if his next words would be angry or apologetic, but he didn't want to give in to either reaction yet. "Those machines," John spoke to Carson while gesturing with his gun, "were doing something at Rodney's chest and head, and he was out cold. Can you scan him for nanites or mind control or whatever you can think of?"

Lorne and Zelenka arrived by the end of John's request. Lorne drew his sidearm and took position to cover one robot bug without asking questions.

Zelenka said, "Rodney, did something happen to cat bots?"

"The Colonel had a little Captain Picard moment here and pistol whipped my bots."

John kept his voice level as he answered between clenched teeth, "I did not pistol whip anything. With my sidearm properly in hand I used the barrel to remove two alien artifacts that were crawling over your unconscious body after you failed to answer loud knocking at your door."

Rodney managed to crack his eyes open and wave a hand swathed in white gauze wildly as he argued, "I was sleeping, possibly heavier than usual from whatever Carson gave me. The Directed Upload Devices were scanning my neural processes while I slept, as they have every night for the past three weeks. Both Radek and Carson knew about the project. Perhaps you could have called them before breaking Ancient technology that I will now have to spend untold hours repairing and retesting. And why were you in my room while I was asleep anyway?"

John was not going to say how worried he'd been when Rodney's didn't answer his determined knocking. He wasn't going to even hint at how on edge he'd been all day with the new regulations finally in place. His issues with bugs and bug-like robots were definitely not up for discussion. So he settled on, "When I stopped by the infirmary, Beckett said I could find you here. Upon arrival I discovered a potential threat to security, which should at the very least have been mentioned at one of those weekly senior staff meetings we all have to sit through And did you call those things Directed Upload Devices? In other words DUDs?"

Rodney glared through half lidded eyes. The look was surprisingly intimidating for a guy in a rumpled black tee shirt that read, "Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"

"Not to worry," Radek cut in calmly. "If we are done with the guns?" Radek waved and waited for John and Lorne to holster their weapons. "I will collect the cat bots and see how much repair is needed. You will return to resting, Rodney, yes?"

As Radek moved around the room and carefully collected both machines, John couldn't help but ask, "Did he call them cat bots?"

"Did you call them DUDs? They are the size of cats, get underfoot like cats, and exhibit idiosyncratic problem solving behaviors like cats—therefore catbots is acceptable. DUDs is most definitely not." Rodney elbowed Carson away from the bed and then cringed when he tried to pull his covers up. Carson leaned back in and gently pressed Rodney to lie down before carefully tucking the covers under his chin.

"I'll see you in the morning," Carson said to Rodney. Then he turned to John with a "Goodnight, Colonel," before leaving.

John turned to Lorne who stood silently as he had throughout the incident. "Major, add something about security protocols to the senior staff agenda for this week."

"Yes, sir." Lorne saluted and left.

As Zelenka scurried out the door carrying the bots, which did have whisker and eye shaped sensors and looked a lot more like cats while cradled in Zelenka's arms, he whispered loudly, "Perhaps you ask Rodney what he named the bots."

Then Zelenka was gone and John thought the doors closed before he went to sit at the end of Rodney's bed. Rodney glared at him.

"Look, I'm sorry if I broke something, but with all the years of exploding tumors and hive ship seeds, you can imagine how it looked when I walked in."

"Shoot first; ask questions later?"

"I didn't shoot them, and it wasn't like that."

"It's like kicking a roomba."

John heard the honest sorrow in Rodney's voice, and cursed Rodney's too expressive face. The physicist looked like someone had taken his cat away while he was sick in bed, which in Rodney's worldview, probably wasn't too far from the truth. John wanted to make it up to him, but that wasn't the sort of thing he knew how to say. Instead he asked, "So what did you name them?"

Rodney's glare moved to the door, clearly cursing Radek for his hints. "Spock and Data."

"No wonder you want them in bed with you."

"What?" McKay squeaked.

"I've seen how you look at Leonard Nimoy and Brent Spiner when we watch those old shows."

Rodney's eyes opened wider than they had all night, and the moment of panic reminded John of what he'd meant to tell Rodney today. Before John could speak, Rodney was shouting out, "I'll have you know that androids and characters of superior intellect and logic were rarely portrayed with such sympathy and depth in that time period."

"And you consider yourself sapiosexual."

Rodney scowled. "When did I say that?"

"You explained the term when we watched 'A Beautiful Mind' and whenever you raved about Sam or Jennifer you mentioned intelligence as often as you mentioned being beautiful or blond."

"From that you jump to Spock and Data?"

"You're telling me you wouldn't go for intelligence in an attractive, dark-haired man?" John laid his hand on Rodney's leg just above the knee.

*

Rodney was eighty-three percent certain, based on direct evidence, that John was hitting on him. But historically, that didn't make sense. Why would John come onto him tonight, when Rodney was injured and angry about the cat bots? Why would John hit on him now after years of inconclusive behavior that Rodney had convinced himself wasn't flirting?

"Wait, what's the date on Earth?" Rodney asked.

"September 20th, 2011."

"Is this your way of coming out to me? After seven years, you come to my room on the day they repeal some ridiculous American military policy and make vague allusions about Spock and Data and whether I consider myself sapiosexual? And what exactly are you saying anyway, that you're gay, bi, pansexual, sapiosexual or what?"

John rolled his eyes, one of the many mannerisms that seemed to clash with his straight male military persona in Rodney's mind. "Hell if I know. I wasn't quite sure if I needed to come out to you after all this time. But I'm here. I'm offering. And your hands are sort of out of commission."

Rodney's cock filled so fast it hurt. The way John watched it tent the thin bedcovers made Rodney want to squirm, but he tried to maintain some control. He'd sworn off sex after Jennifer, dedicated himself fully to realizing his genius.

But this was John.

Finally John's crazy hazel eyes tracked up Rodney's body, pausing only briefly at his lips before meeting his eyes. "Is that a 'yes'?" John smiled and leaned forward, and Rodney's skin burned with a need to be touched right away.

Rodney barely had enough higher brain function left to say, "Yes."

Then John's hand was stroking circles well above the knee and John was leaning in for a kiss. The first touch of lips was light, but the change in position pressed John halfway across Rodney's chest. Rodney was pinned down, bandaged hands flung uselessly out to his sides when all he wanted to do was grab on and touch. Instead, he let John's tongue trace his lips and slide inside as John's hand caressed very high on his thigh. Rodney could smell lavender and mint from whatever John used on his hair. Underneath that scent was a distinctly male musk that Rodney hadn't indulged in for a very long time.

Then John's tongue slipped into his mouth, and there was nothing tentative about the wet thrusting and stroking. This was completely unlike Jennifer's erotic mapping of his mouth or Katie's flicks of tongue that mostly moistened lips. John kissed the way he threw himself into danger. He explored and changed tactics without ever hesitating or backing away. When his tongue thrust in a way that made Rodney moan, John repeated that thrust and then added a twist or change in pressure until he had Rodney moaning louder and clutching the bandages on his hands even though the pressure hurt more than a bit. Some strand of remaining sentience noted that John had brushed his teeth since dinner, suggesting there had been planning behind all of this.

John's hand finally shifted to press and stroke Rodney's crotch. The scientist bucked so hard he broke their kiss and gasped for breath.

"Let me blow you?"

Rodney couldn't stop a high pitched whine in the back of his throat. When that didn't get John moving, Rodney nodded frantically.

All at once John was untying Rodney's pajama pants with one hand while his mouth and other hand attacked Rodney's nipples though his tee shirt. It was almost Rodney's undoing. Bright white flashed behind his eyelids as pleasure spread like starbursts from his always sensitive nipples. John responded by rubbing one nipple between his fingers while sucking wet and warm at the other.

Rodney pressed hard into the hand on his now bare cock and wondered if he could last even one more minute.

Then John pulled back, stroking a single finger from Rodney's balls to his cockhead. Rodney's eyes drifted open, and he saw John flushed and rumpled but still fully clothed. Rodney wanted to pull both their shirts off, but his hands already stung, and he couldn't find any words to ask John to do it.

John shifted to kneel between Rodney's legs and leaned forward with his tongue reaching out to taste the bead of precome on the tip of Rodney's cock. It was the sexiest thing Rodney had ever seen in person, and he vowed to keep his eyes open through the rest. He watched as John swirled his tongue around the crown, slowly—once, twice, three times. Then the warm wet mouth engulfed the crown, and Rodney's nervous system overloaded again. John hollowed his cheeks and sucked just the tip, and Rodney felt like vacuum was racing through his whole body, a bell jar being emptied and in the next moment filled with heat.

Rodney started to shiver. When John sucked him in all the way, Rodney couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. John's throat was swallowing around him, and in a moment Rodney was coming like he'd never come before. It went on and on as John pulled him through it, pulled him inside out, and left him limp and blissed out.

When Rodney's eyelids fluttered once again and enough neurons fired to simulate intelligence, he found his pajama pants back in place and John spooned up behind him still fully clothed. He couldn't tell if John was hard or not, but he didn't feel a wet spot through their pants. "Can't I do something for you?" Rodney asked.

"It's not about that," John whispered hot behind his ear. Everywhere their bodies pressed together felt warm and comfortable. "Go ahead and sleep."

Rodney couldn't help it. He fell asleep drifting in warmth and pleasure.

*

John was startled awake by the radio still on his ear. "Dr. Zelenka to Colonel Sheppard. If you're awake, could you meet me in electronics storage room? Is somewhat urgent."

By the time Zelenka finished speaking, John was out of Rodney's bed. The physicist slept on with a contented smile at the corners of his mouth. His face was flushed, his hair tousled. John couldn't stand to wake him and figured they could avoid the awkward morning after and work out details later, preferably after Rodney had his coffee fix.

John smoothed his clothes as well as he could. His hair always stuck out, so he didn't worry about just running a hand through it. A quick time check showed him it was almost midnight, so he didn't need to look too clean and pressed. As he left Rodney's room he radioed, "On my way."

Then John started to worry that Radek had bad news to report about the cat bots. But not being able to fix them would hardly count as urgent, and he'd only called for John. What if John's suspicions were correct and the bots had been doing something harmful to Rodney?

John stopped short when he entered the electronics storage room to find Zelenka standing beside a more than rumpled looking Marine. Lieutenant Miller had been with the expedition from the start, so it made sense he would know Dr. Zelenka. But John couldn't remember ever seeing them together, and while Zelenka had a bit of a reputation for playing both sides of the fence, John couldn't quite picture the relationship the scene before him was suggesting.

Miller went to attention when John entered.

"At ease," John said. When no one spoke John looked to Zelenka, "You called me about something urgent?"

"Somewhat," Zelenka said, looking pointedly at Miller who only stared directly into a wall full of shelves. Zelenka sighed. "There are issues that I have handled for the scientists over the years that perhaps you will be handling in your own way now."

John nodded but hesitated to jump in, less and less sure of how to interpret the situation. He decided a strong silence was his best command approach.

Zelenka pushed his glasses up his nose. "Beyond official rules, every society or workplace has unwritten codes. Being from many different backgrounds and with many unique personalities here, we have come to an understanding over the years that not only must 'no' mean 'no' but a clear 'yes' is the only signal that always means 'yes.' Some people's behavior may be more aggravating than others, but some also do not realize the signals they are sending or have bad experiences from past that must be respected."

John wasn't sure how to take Zelenka's round about explanation and translate it into military speak to deal with his silent Marine.

"I have a Power Point I show our staff who need some clarification. If you would like me to show you…" Zelenka looked ready to reach for a laptop.

John rubbed the back of his neck and watched the Lieutenant as he said, "Maybe you could send me a copy of that or help put together a larger presentation. But for the matter at hand, are you saying Lieutenant Miller made inappropriate advances after you told him 'no'?"

Zelenka shook his head, and John felt a moment of relief. "Is not my complaint. I received an angry call from another scientist, Kavanaugh, who accused Miller of pushing up against him repeatedly in this room. Kavanaugh was assigned to complete inventory by today and procrastinated. No one saw what went on, but I have dealt with Kavanaugh before and he would not make this up. He and I will review other parts of Power Point about mixed signals, but your Marines must know Atlantis is not a pick up spot. Some people receive few advances and may panic if pressured, especially by military. You understand?"

John nodded and stood up straighter to face his Marine. "Lt. Miller, do you understand what Dr. Zelenka explained? Do you see how there was a problem here tonight?"

"Yes, sir."

"Would you have handled the situation differently if you'd heard this talk from Dr. Zelenka ahead of time?"

"Yes, sir."

John believed the man was sincere. "Dr. Zelenka, if Miller were one of the science staff here, can you tell me how you would proceed?"

Zelenka raised his eyebrows but answered, "From what I know, there was no violence, Kavanaugh is no more pissed off than most days, and the whole thing ended without trauma. For scientist, I would talk until I saw understanding then assign very unpleasant duty. Sewage maintenance is popular choice."

"You usually need a Marine escort for that, right?"

Zelenka nodded.

"Tell me, Doc, before Miller's promising future in sewage maintenance begins, would you be willing to work with him to adapt the presentation you give civilians into something that would come across loud and clear to the military here? I've known Miller for seven years. He's a good Marine and seems like a decent person who could help communicate these ideas to other Marines. I don't want to herald the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' with a mark against anyone's record. The military here needs to understand exactly what's expected in personal interactions, and then I'm going to hold them to it. Think you could help get us started?"

"If Lt. Miller is available tomorrow morning at eight, I believe we could have something ready by afternoon."

John nodded to Zelenka, "I'll put a mandatory training out for 1600." Then he turned to Miller, "I trust you won't disappoint me with this."

"No, sir. I appreciate the opportunity, sir."

"Dismissed."

As Miller saluted and left, John said to Zelenka, "Let me know if you need anything or anyone to get this ready." John thought he should say more about how well Zelenka had handled the initial situation and how Zelenka's insights might have saved them all a world of trouble, but the scientist shook his head gently as if he already knew. John lowered his voice, "Hell, you pretty much run the barter economy in this city and know what your time is worth, tell me when there's something I have or can get that you want. I owe you."

Zelenka winked and John was sure the sly physicist would make John pay appropriately.

*

Rodney woke up alone. His hands and head ached. He briefly wondered if he'd imagined everything involving John the night before. But he didn't have that kind of imagination.

After seven years, he'd finally had sex with John. Or more precisely, John had given him the best blow job of his life. Was that all it had been? Had John celebrated the end of DADT by coming out to his best friend and giving him a blow job?

There was a time when Rodney fantasized about sex with John. After the last few years, he wasn't even sure where he stood with John as a friend. Jennifer had insisted that racing cars and watching movies to fill his free time was childish. Back on Earth, she'd prodded him to improve his professional standing, both by pursuing work he could publish and by attending prestigious events together. For a while he thought she made him a better person. Then she tore him apart when he wanted to return to Pegasus and she didn't. Since then, he'd determined to focus on what he was best at, being a genius. He'd given up his place on a gate team, only going off world when potential discoveries justified the investment of his time. He didn't need other people, and as often as not, he failed them on a personal level.

Rodney wasn't sure if he'd failed John the night before by not reciprocating the blow job or if he'd failed him three years before by neglecting their friendships for Jennifer's demands. Either way, the best he had to offer now was his genius.

His genius could extend to giving amazing blow jobs. Even if he hadn't practiced in a while, Rodney knew he could harness his exceptional attention to detail and to what mattered for each partner. It would be hard without using his hands to at least steady himself, but he'd gladly try if it meant more sex with John. But if John didn't want any more, if last night had been just a coming out/ sorry about your bots/ sorry about your hands moment, Rodney told himself he could deal with that. His work and his genius were what mattered after all.

Rodney pushed himself out of bed, seeing it was already past eight o'clock, and started to get ready.

The flash burns on his hands hurt with every touch. Brushing his teeth was agony. He didn't even try to shower or shave.

Getting dressed left tears in his eyes. At least the pounding in his head couldn't compete with the stinging in his hands. Some pain threshold cut it off.

Rodney was beyond caring if he looked like a zombie as he entered the mess hall. He made a bee line for the coffee, tried to fill a cup, and realized he was in for a world of hurt. For untold moments, he blinked against stinging eyes as he stared at the coffee and mugs arrayed in front of him.

A grunt startled him. He could smell a sweaty, post-exercise Ronon behind him, before he turned his head to see the man grabbing himself two muffins and a water bottle.

Ronon shook his head at Rodney's obvious predicament. Then much to Rodney's surprise, the behemoth set down his own food. Ronon never abandoned food uneaten. But the alien inexplicably turned to fill a pitcher with ice. Then he poured a whole pot of coffee over the ice and picked up a tall glass and a straw. Ronon carried the pitcher and the glass to the nearest table and poured a glass of iced coffee. Then he set the pitcher beside it.

It wasn't until Ronon had retrieved his own food and sat across the table that Rodney really understood the offering. He didn't usually like iced coffee, but he couldn't deny that drinking through a straw was his best chance at caffeine this morning. Rodney plopped himself down and managed to mutter, "Thanks."

Ronon grunted around a mouth full of muffin.

As Rodney emptied his glass of iced coffee by leaning forward, not even using his hands, Ronon said, "Open your mouth."

"What?" Rodney asked as he looked up.

Ronon threw a piece of muffin straight into Rodney's mouth. Then the crazy barbarian refilled Rodney's glass.

"What do you think you're doing?" Rodney grumbled around his muffin.

"You rather be spoon fed?"

"Of course not."

"Thought so."

As Rodney opened his mouth to argue further, Ronon threw another bit of muffin with precision aim.

Ronon eventually fetched two more muffins, and they made it through the rest of the meal with Ronon saying only, "Open," and Rodney muttering but playing along.

*

John had a great day running the station's military contingent through their biannual evacuation drill and then watching from the back of the room as Zelenka and Miller gave lessons in Atlantis etiquette. John could see Miller's influence in the slightly humorous placement of Marine catch phrases on some of the slides. On the upper corner of a page with a "to do" list additional green lettering had been added on a diagonal that read "a few good men." And of course Miller led the class in a good, "Oorah!" at any opportune moment.

Zelenka and Miller managed to run the whole show without any direct mention of DADT, but it was clear Radek knew more than a bit about alternative lifestyles when he deadpanned, "To many here, a hanky in a back pocket is for blowing nose or wiping forehead. If you think it means more, ask a clear yes or no question."

Miller followed up. "If your momma," he said the word "momma" with an exaggerated drawl straight out of Texas, "ever threatened to lock you in your room if you failed to show respect for your date, let me say that your momma don't live here. But your date may have scientist friends who won't hesitate to lock you in your room, or worse." Several Marines stifled nervous laughter.

The only part of the presentation that gave John pause was when Miller presented a slide about discussing expectations. Even before listing PDAs, bondage and medical conditions, the slide said staying the night or leaving should be mutually agreed. John wanted to believe Rodney would give him the benefit of the doubt. He thought the night before had gone pretty well. But it was always hard to tell with Rodney, and the debacle with Keller had only made that worse.

As if John's thoughts had summoned him, Rodney came stomping into the room red faced. He may have been trying to whisper out of deference to the presentation going on, but Rodney was never good at keeping quiet when he was upset.

"You stole my minion!"

Zelenka's quick look left no doubt that he'd heard the pseudo-whisper from across the room. Most of the Marines were more discreet, keeping their faces forward. Still, John tried to herd Rodney out the nearest door before the rant gained too much steam.

"I've been looking for him all day. Carson won't let me in any lab. He took all my laptops and data pads because he thinks I'll forget and use my hands!" By the time Rodney was actually yelling, John had him in the hallway. "Zelenka is supposed to be fixing my cat bots. I could at least offer advice to speed that along. If even one is still operable, then it could train based on my neural activations as I looked at various problems." Rodney was talking fast, and John maneuvered him into a transporter. "But it turns out Zelenka, a member of my science staff, has wasted the entire day writing a presentation for your military staff. And it's not even about science!"

They stepped out in front of the infirmary.

"Why are we here?" Rodney demanded. "I've already yelled at Carson. You won't distract me that easily."

At the (loud) mention of his name, Carson walked across the room to meet them. "Alas, back so soon? You didn't find gracing us with your presence this morning and all of yesterday to be enough?"

John started with, "Hey, Carson, do you still have that laptop with speech recognition from when Chuck had that fingernail fungus?"

"What do you mean all day yesterday?" Rodney shouted over him. "It has to have been past noon by the time anyone noticed I was gone."

Facing John, Carson said, "I'm not sure, but I see why you're asking. We could check the accessibility supplies." To Rodney he said, "Zelenka brought you in just after midnight. He'd been looking for you everywhere and saw a warning light on the exterior monitor for that machine you put yourself in. You spent most of the day sedated while we got you hydrated, evened out your blood sugar, and cleaned your burns. And if you're going to do crazy things like lock yourself in a machine without telling anyone, could you please be sure to eat dinner first?" Carson turned calmly to a passing nurse and asked if he could check for the laptop with speech recognition and a headset microphone.

"I ate dinner." Rodney continued his rant heedless of Carson's distraction. "And I didn't enter that machine until after midnight. I was in there for hours. I only tried to leave when I realized I was thirsty and needed to pee. My hands were already shaking from hypoglycemia. I assumed I wasn't missed for at least ten hours. Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's all in your file. You can access it anytime." Carson's eyes searched Rodney's face in a more clinical way. "Maybe we should run further tests. All of my readings suggested you'd gone too long without eating."

Carson placed a hand on Rodney's shoulder to steer him toward a bed, just as the nurse returned with the requested laptop and microphone.

"Don't be an idiot. Let's assume for once that your voodoo results were right. Or more simply, assume I know when I'm hungry or need to pee. If I spent subjective hours in that machine while little or no time passed on the outside, then clearly the ARV co-opts more than just its power supply from the dimensional interface." Rodney turned to leave the room saying over his shoulder, "Sheppard, bring the laptop to my room for me. I need to look into this right away."

As John took the computer Carson said, "Make sure he's set up not to use his hands. We can talk about this more at senior staff tomorrow."

John spent the next fifteen minutes following Rodney's order for clearing space and setting up the laptop in his room. Then Rodney was suddenly chattering voice commands, and John found himself unsure of what to do.

"You need anything else, McKay?"

"What? Are you still here?"

The computer diligently repeated its last response of "processing."

"Not you," McKay flapped his bandaged hands at the laptop then used the back of one hand to move the microphone away from his mouth. "Stupid machine." Without looking up he said, "I don't think it can handle me talking to you while working. Was there something else?"

John wanted to make sure Rodney hadn't minded him leaving in the middle of the night, but it seemed stupid to bring it up when Rodney hadn't mentioned anything about what they'd done the night before. "Naw, just call if you need anything."

*

By nine that night, Rodney's head ached again. His hands stung even though he'd barely touched anything all day. The slightest twitch or flex of fingers felt like a knife cutting into the crevices on his palms and beneath his knuckles. At some point a blister had popped and oozed, but Rodney figured that was why he had gauze wrapped around his hands, and he wasn't facing Carson again before their meeting the next morning.

Hearing a knock at his door, Rodney verbally paused the speech recognition program and mentally commanded the door to open. A smiling John stepped in with a bowl of popcorn, two beers, and a handful of DVDs. "Wanna watch a movie?"

Rodney couldn't take his eyes off the beer bottles he couldn't possibly hold and the bowl of tiny salty puffs that he couldn't pick up. "I don't think I can deal with this."

John's face went from friendly to military mask in under a second. "It can just be a movie."

"While I watch you eat popcorn?" Rodney's mouth was salivating. He felt like one of Pavlov's dogs.

John twitched and tilted his head. His face started to soften as his eyebrows pulled in, and by the time his mouth relaxed the corners were tilting up. "I could feed you."

"No!"

John smirked and slouched back against the now closed door. "Oh come on, it could be fun. Haven't you ever dreamed of having a slave boy feed you peeled grapes? Popcorn kernels are sort of stripped naked like peeled grapes, don't you think?"

Rodney's face heated. "Is that your idea of seduction? Being fed is for babies and drooling old men. Do you have some kind of disability kink?"

"What?" John's voice was high, practically a screech for him.

"Do you get off on being in control? On me not being able to touch you?"

John's head jutted forward and his mouth fell open. "No. How could you even think that?"

"Then lie on the bed and let me give you a blow job."

"But your hands…"

"I don't need them to give you a blow job!"

"But you'd have to support yourself. Maybe if you sat back with some pillows—"

"You want to dictate how I give you a blow job? My elbows and forearms are perfectly fine. Don't you believe I can do something as simple as oral sex?"

"Okay, okay." John moved to set the movies and snacks on top of a mostly stable pile of journals covering the dresser. "I'll do it any way you want so long as you're not hurting yourself. I'm not into pain, for either of party."

"I guess that's reassuring given what you do for a living. Now get undressed."

John shifted back toward the dresser missing his usual lazy slouch by a mile. "You sure you don't want a movie first?"

Rodney didn't know how he'd ended up arguing against a movie or why he was pushing John so hard. He'd never ordered anyone else around this way during sex, and neither his heart nor his libido was into it now. But something compelled him to follow through after pushing this far. "It's my turn to give you a blow job. Do you seriously have a problem with that?"

"No, no." John rubbed the back of his neck. "I just feel like I'm missing something here. Are you mad because I left in the middle of the night? Are you still upset about Jennifer?"

Memories of Jennifer berating him before she left Atlantis flashed through Rodney's mind, but he was sure he was over her. He didn't really want any relationships at all, but this wasn't about dating or marriage. This was about sex. "Don't be an idiot. Just take off your clothes."

John was only wearing a tee shirt and jeans. He didn't make a production of it, but by the time John tossed his black tee shirt aside, Rodney was half hard. John's muscles bunched and flowed even when the man wasn't trying to be sexy, and his scars made the sight real and uniquely John.

Then the tousle-haired flyboy carefully unzipped his fly. There wasn't anything under John's jeans. Rodney was salivating again and very hard.

The man was gorgeous, all long lines and dark chest hair tapering down to point at the part Rodney was finally going to get a chance to touch. Unfortunately, John wasn't hard there at all.

"Change your mind?" Rodney asked.

"No, this is just strange."

"You have been with guys before?"

John rolled his eyes. "I'm gay, McKay."

"Not bi?"

"Maybe a little, but mostly because I couldn't be with guys if I wanted to fly."

"Not at all?"

"A few times, at bars far from base." John huffed in discomfort, not even trying to look sexy but succeeding anyway. "Do we really have to discuss this while I'm naked and you're dressed?"

"Does that make you uncomfortable?" Rodney thought it was sort of hot, and he didn't think someone as outgoing and good looking as John could mind being on display, unless he really did need to be the one in charge to enjoy sex.

"Maybe a little. Can I take your clothes off?" John shifted his hips like it was a come on, but the move looked forced. The guy who could charm half of Pegasus didn't look like he was enjoying this at all.

Rodney couldn't stand the idea of letting John undress him because he couldn't do it smoothly by himself. In that moment, his erection started to fade, and Rodney wondered why he'd tried this at all with a headache and his hands wrapped in gauze. "Maybe this was a bad idea."

John stood up straighter and reached for his clothes. He didn't say a work as he pulled on his jeans. He didn't meet Rodney's eyes until the pants were fastened. "I don't suppose you want to watch a movie?"

"Not really," Rodney said as John pulled on his shirt.

"Maybe some other time?"

Rodney wasn't sure if John was asking about sex or a movie. He wasn't sure how this night had gone so wrong. "Maybe," was the best answer he could give.

After John left, Rodney climbed into bed exhausted. He didn't bother trying to take off his clothes. Falling asleep was easy enough, but all night long he was plagued with dreams of John walking out on him and of all the versions of himself working alone in alternate universes. The only alternative he'd seen where any Rodney wasn't alone involved him lying in bed injured. He figured that was how his life was meant to be.

*

At the senior staff meeting the next morning, John sat between Teyla and Rodney as usual. Rodney had the voice activated laptop with him and the headset on, but he didn't have his usual cup of coffee. John wasn't sure if Rodney was uncaffeinated or merely hadn't been able to carry a cup with him in his bandaged hand.

"Should I grab you some coffee, Rodney?"

"No. If I need any help I'll—I won't need any help."

John looked across the table to Woolsey, who was buried in a pile of papers that didn't bode well for the length of their meeting. He glanced at Teyla who leaned in close and whispered, "You might benefit from accompanying Ronon to the mess hall after your run tomorrow."

John was about to ask Teyla what that had to do with anything when Carson and Radek came in and the meeting started with a report on the DUDs.

Radek began, "I believe both Directed Upload Devices are fully repaired; however, we must reinitialize to fully assess."

"That's three weeks of learning wasted," Rodney mumbled.

Woolsey said, "Surely you can apply what you've learned the second time around."

"Not my learning," Rodney said with a disappointed sigh. "The first stage of the cat bot's learning is gathering general functional and environmental data. It's like the first stage of what we call heuristic programming. It allows the bots to refine search methods in the second stage and have better guided learning in the third stage. Except with these Ancient bots, all three of those introductory stages can run somewhat in parallel. We were just reaching the interesting, inductive inference stage, where the bots might start answering novel questions and testing their own problem solving."

"Before we start this up again, we need to consider security. Are we sure these bots don't have any other agenda or couldn't develop one, like some kind of AI?" John asked.

"42," was Rodney's only answer.

Carson, Woolsey and Teyla looked confused. Seeing Radek wouldn't jump in to explain at a senior staff meeting he didn't usually attend, John clarified. "He's saying we don't understand the question well enough to obtain a useful answer."

"Surely that means we should back off on this research," Woolsey said.

That at least caused Rodney to roll his eyes and rant. John suspected Woolsey had done it on purpose. The bureaucrat was sneaky that way.

"The voice recognition program on this computer," Rodney flung a hand toward his temporary laptop but cut the gesture off abruptly, "was developed using heuristic programming and learns to better understand my words by testing the alternate solutions it generates. An Ancient subroutine literally reads my mind to decide what shower temperature and water pressure I'd prefer each morning, and it's not like I have to think 'hard spray, 40 Celsius.' It's developed its own algorithm, invisible to me, probably involving room temperature, time of day, and maybe how hard I stomp my feet as I enter the room. If you want to worry about strong AI, you'll have to give up having Sheppard defend or fly the city from the control chair, because every time he sits there, the city better assesses what he wants. Heck, if the city wasn't so easily led by our very own Colonel Kirk, he wouldn't have been allowed into my quarter to break the bots in the first place."

"So you're not at all concerned about uploading your mind into these bots?" Woolsey asked.

"Oh, seriously, this is why we don't try to explain these things to non-scientists in the first place." Rodney tried to bury his head in his hands, but the gesture was careful because of his injury and clearly not satisfying. John could see his friend was in pain and wanted to help, even if he was a bit confused and annoyed with the scientist at present.

Radek took over at that point, projecting slides on the adaptive Atlantis walls. "The cat bots are not designed to upload Rodney's mind. As with most smart devices on Earth, these bots focus on a specific area of expertise, in this case, Rodney's chosen his scientific problem solving skills. The two bots train separately and cannot download information to the rest of Atlantis. Perhaps as security measures"—Radek nodded toward John—"the Ancients designed them to take in data by any means available, but to only offer their solutions verbally, in printed form, or with limited mechanical actions when instructed. Their primary purpose is to give advice that Dr. McKay might otherwise give. In some situations, they might process information faster or based on data taken in faster than their human progenitor could manage. In others, they might offer alternatives that reflect McKay's reasoning but evolve into a slightly different perspective from his or from each other's. Having two separate bots helps to gauge the variance due to learning environments and evolution of the programs."

Carson added in, "The bots also observe McKay's general health and stress level. Some of their training is dependent on him passing through necessary stages of REM and deep sleep, so they monitor his brain waves and adjust to encourage good sleep. Also, McKay determines a limited number of people the bots will take questions or instructions from based on his own experiences, so in some ways the bots are less of a security liability than an actual human."

"You're saying they can't be manipulated for information," Teyla restated, and John was glad for Rodney's sake that she hadn't directly mentioned torture.

"Not only that," the doctor answered, "but their progenitor, in this case McKay, could not be forced to make them answer to someone he didn't trust or think they should work for. They would pick up the conflict from his brain waves."

"From what you said before about sleep," Woolsey said, "it sounds like they influence McKay's brain waves to accommodate their learning. But that isn't one of the allowed outputs you mentioned before."

Carson smiled. "Yes, I had to look closely at that part of the research when I did my initial review before McKay started training the bots. It seems some people had trouble sleeping with earlier versions of the bots nearby. So part of the knowledge graph the bots are initialized with includes identification of wave patterns during sleep and the option to try sound or motion as strategies to encourage or prolong certain brain states, but it is all tied to an overarching awareness of the person's general health."

"Aww, I bet you call them cat bots because they purr and cuddle." John couldn't help the dig, he still hadn't gotten over seeing the bot on Rodney's chest.

"They don't cuddle. They just stay where you saw them." Rodney didn't look at John as he spoke, and John noticed he didn't deny the purring, though John hadn't heard anything himself. "It will be interesting to see if the bots decide on the same arrangement when reinitialized."

"If they're not independent intelligences, shouldn't they come out the same the second time around?" John asked, still uneasy in his understanding.

"The two bots didn't come out quite the same as each other the first time. The new ones will start with a version of me that has three weeks of additional experiences and the memory of their predecessors being attacked. Don't be surprised if the new versions run away from you." Finally Rodney looked right at him. It was almost worth being dissed by robo-pets.

"Moving on," Woolsey said, "Any further concerns with Dr. McKay restarting this project?"

"Shouldn't there be some sort of restore from back-up to avoid starting over every time these things get damaged?" John asked.

"They're specifically designed not to upload information electronically. It's presumably a safeguard to protect other systems." McKay waved his hand casually in John's direction, and John noticed the fingers and palm didn't curve or bend with the motion. Small movements must seriously hurt to retrain McKay's motions that much in one day.

"We might add a non-networked back-up," Radek suggested.

"Like an external hard drive—" Rodney piped in.

"But with crystals to keep the size down—" Radek said.

"We could attach it to the charging station…"

The two scientists leaned in toward Radek's computer, but Woolsey cut them off saying, "Thank you, Dr. Zelenka. I think we're finished with that agenda item."

Radek left the room quickly, computer in hand. Rodney watched mournfully.

"Dr. McKay," Woolsey said, "perhaps you could update us on the device you were pulled out of two nights ago?"

Rodney rolled his eyes again. "The Alternate Reality Viewer achieved its primary function for viewing alternate realities related to my query, but without being able to rotate viewpoints or hear audio, it is very hard to obtain useful information that way. I'm still researching how the device draws power from the dimensional interface and the way time spent inside passes independently of our dimension. But for now I'm marking the ARV off limits to all other personnel and consider it low priority for its primary function of viewing alternate dimensions."

"Very well," Woolsey said, "let's move on to agenda items from our Chief of Medicine." Woolsey and Beckett smiled at each other. John tried not to fall asleep.

*

After the horrendously long morning meeting, Rodney spent the afternoon frustrated by how the speech recognition system slowed his work. He had given up and was stomping back to his room for the night when a small body with a mop of brown hair pounced from around a corner.

"Uncle Rod'ey!" Torren's head pressed into Rodney's hip as the young boy's arms hugged around his legs.

It was incredibly awkward being hugged by someone barely over three feet tall and with no sense of modesty or personal space. But Rodney couldn't remember the last time he'd been hugged. He felt himself relax and drop a hand to tousle Torren's hair without a conscious thought.

As usual, Teyla appeared just behind her son. "He heard your _pets_ were _hurt_ and insisted we find you."

"Well the cat bots aren't exactly pets—" Rodney started.

"You can share MuMu. He be good."

Rodney knew MuMu was the name of Torren's pet, a sort of furry snake that Athosian kids treated like a hamster. Rodney wasn't fond of hamsters on Earth, and the one time he'd held MuMu, the creature had bitten him. The bite was no worse than being pinched with sandpaper, but still, if Rodney hadn't admired Teyla's parenting so much, he'd have asked serious questions about allowing such a creature as a pet. "Wonderful as that sounds, Torren, my cat bots were just returned to me. So I think I'll spend the time with them."

"Cat bots all better?" Torren asked, arm still holding Rodney's legs even as his head lifted to smile up at Rodney.

"Well…" Rodney caught Teyla's pointed stare that was probably meant to communicate the proper adult to kid answer, but Rodney could only guess what it meant. "The cat bots are back in my room, but they'll mostly be sleeping quietly for a few days."

"Can I visit?"

At Rodney's panicked look, Teyla said, "Not today. Maybe Rodney can pet them for you."

"Okay!" With that Torren suddenly let go and started racing down the hall away from Rodney. Teyla smiled in some sort of approval before following her son.

Rodney shook his head, touched by Torren's concern, but reminding himself that he was an adult, a scientist, and basically beyond needing such things.

When he reached his room, he saw the cat bots settled beside his bed. Having just reset, they didn't move or make any sounds. It was almost as depressing as being home with real cats who were too sick to move.

Rodney had managed to shower and change clothes earlier, but remembering the pain and hassle from using his hands that way had him climbing into bed fully dressed again. The moment he lay down, memories of John's amazing blow job assaulted him. He tried to tell his body that he was too busy for sex and power trips. His brain betrayed him by trying to apply scientific reasoning to recent events with John. How could someone who flew a city and fired weapons with his mind interfaced to Atlantis presume to questions Rodney's use of the cat bots? When he'd first come to Rodney's quarters two night ago, had John planned on coming out to his friend or seducing his co-worker? Whatever the initial conditions, it was clear to Rodney that John foregoing underwear the second night meant John had intended something more than watching movies. The memory of John being totally unaroused while Rodney was hard and offering a blow job sent a pained shudder through Rodney's body. No matter how much he'd enjoyed their first time, Rodney couldn't handle being with someone who didn't really want him or had to always be in charge.

At that moment, the newly initialized cat bots made their first sounds. One burbled like R2D2 and the other let out a low whistle, reminiscent of a sigh. Clearly they were reacting to his mental state. Rodney kicked himself for starting the bots off with a version of himself so much less focused and rational than three weeks before. He had to focus and keep his mind on work. Fumbling painfully for the headset microphone on his nightstand, Rodney said, "Computer, list aloud the external readings from my time inside the Alternate Reality Viewer."

The numbers soothed Rodney. A list of tiny field fluctuation that had passed by too fast for a human to monitor on the outside represented the hours Rodney had spent inside the RAV. Rodney listened as the list recited verbally took hours, but his mind kept flashing to scenes he'd seen in the machine of himself alone or, in very brief moments of weakness, to skin hunger for the touch of an annoying Air Force Colonel.

By six in the morning, Rodney realized he hadn't slept at all but was too tired and sore to argue his way back into lab for the day. He needed the nighttime hours back to sleep, to train his cat bots, and to allow his hands to heal. That's when he realized how easy it would be to climb inside the ARV but not activate the viewing function. He could latch the door and grab a few hours sleep before anyone else woke up. Of course time would still pass for him. He'd come out a few hours older, but that was necessary if he wanted his body rested and his hands further healed. His insides would tell him when enough hours had passed that he needed to eat and pee. Just in case, Rodney climbed out of bed and carefully opened a drawer to find a battery powered timer he sometimes used for experiments. If his hypothesis was correct, it would measure time for him so long as it was fully inside the ARV.

Using the backs of his hands as much as possible, Rodney packed the timer, laptop, microphone, cat bots, blanket and pillow into a gym bag. Then he took care of business in the bathroom and drank from the sink without too much difficulty. Unwrapping a power bar was excruciating for a few moments but necessary.

Finally Rodney made his way to the ARV. This time he completed a very thorough check that all systems, especially those for entering and leaving the machine, were fully operational. He set up the voice activated laptop to send Zelenka a message in half an hour if Rodney wasn't out of the machine before then to stop the message from sending.

Then he climbed inside and shut the hatch. He set his timer for ten hours maximum and spread his blanket and pillow on the warm resilient floor. The cat bots sat silently beside him. Rodney felt a strange calm knowing they would watch over his sleep, even if they hadn't learned much yet that would help him sleep. Rodney closed his eyes and dreamed simple comforting images of cat bots chasing computer mice.

*

It wasn't any unusual nosiness that had John leading Ronon near several of Rodney's labs as they cooled down from their early morning run. John often checked the science areas to see who was up early (or late) and if any theoretical scientific debates might spill over into real world consequences during the day.

He was surprised to see Rodney coming out of the ARV room. From the rumpled state of yesterday's clothes, it seemed likely the scientist had trouble sleeping with his injured hands. The duffle over Rodney's shoulder bulged with the shape of a laptop, and under each arm he carried a DUD. Rodney muttered as he walked, not turning his head or noticing Ronon and John in the hall behind him. He seemed to be giving the DUDs a tour, or possibly lecturing them about his work on the ARV.

John almost called out to him, but he remembered Teyla's suggestion about following Ronon to breakfast. Ronon stayed silent, so John followed his lead.

When they reached the mess hall, Ronon collected his usual mountain of food but also prepared a pitcher of iced coffee and a glass with a straw. It was not hard for John to guess that this was so Rodney could get his coffee fix and why he hadn't brought a mug of hot coffee to the previous day's meeting.

John took a seat beside Ronon, across the table from the iced coffee set up. "Rodney lets you do that for him?"

Ronon shrugged. "Can't stop me."

"He could refuse to drink it, tear you a new one for trying to help him."

"Doesn't." Ronon poured the first glass of iced coffee before Rodney even entered the room.

Several minutes passed before Rodney sat across from them, wearing fresh clothes but sporting more than a day's worth of stubble. He didn't look as exhausted as John expected after an all nighter, and he was not carrying the bots anymore, just his laptop.

"Morning, Rodney," John said.

Rodney nodded in his direction before leaning forward and inhaling his first cup of iced coffee. Ronon immediately filled it. When Rodney opened his mouth looking like he would protest, Ronon threw a piece of muffin in. The Satedan had excellent aim and easily managed the shot without any chance of Rodney choking.

Rodney muttered the word "barbarian" as he settled back at his straw. The rest of breakfast followed the same pattern.

At lunch John made a point of watching for Rodney to see how the physicist managed that meal. He ended up calling Lorne to meet with him in the mess rather than his office, because he hadn't seen signs of McKay eating or anyone bringing him food.

By the time he sent Lorne away to put their plans into paperwork, John was concerned. He stuck his head into the kitchen and called over his favorite chef, nicknamed Sergeant Banh. "Sergeant, I have a special assignment for you."

Five minutes later John was carrying something that tasted a lot like a chocolate milk shake into the main physics lab. John had tasted it to be sure, and Banh had assured him it was made with nutritional supplements the infirmary sent for those on liquid diets. Rodney was working at a desk in the corner behind a bookshelf, muttering into the microphone for his Earth laptop while he mentally called up displays on an Ancient console.

John paused for a moment. He hadn't seen Rodney control the Ancient database mentally before, and he wondered how adaptive Atlantis was and whether he should ask the scientists more about strong AI and possible security issues.

John set the chocolate beverage beside the keyboard Rodney wasn't using. When he didn't seem to notice, John nudged it front and center and asked, "Does Beckett know you're in here?"

Rodney glared at John and then at the beverage. He sniffed, then leaned forward and sniffed again. "What's this?"

"Taste it," John said.

"You didn't have to bring me anything."

"You've never objected when I brought you coffee or food before."

"I have when it was disgusting. Remember the time—"

"Come on, taste it." Rodney's expression went wide-eyed and baffled for a moment. John slouched against the desk trying to remember the last time he'd brought Rodney food or coffee. Somehow on Earth, that had seemed out of place. He wondered if Miko or Radek still watched out for Rodney or if they'd all fallen out of the habit when he was with Keller or as routines changed on Earth and with their return to Pegasus.

Rodney leaned down and took a small sip, not using his hands to steady the glass at all. The tentative nature of the movement bothered John. He knew why Rodney wasn't using his hands, but the change in his friend seemed to go beyond his recent injury.

"Not bad," was all Rodney said. Then he immediately leaned down for a much larger sip.

*

That night, Rodney was deciding between a power bar at his new, mostly hidden desk and an MRE he'd have to eat like a dog in his quarter when Carson called on his radio.

"Dr. McKay, you have an appointment in the infirmary."

"What? I didn't schedule an appointment."

"I told you I'd need a follow up scan today before I could even consider clearing you to return to the labs. You don't want me to hunt you down now, do you?"

As Rodney tried to think of another excuse, Carson said, "Today means now, not anytime before midnight. I'll try not to think of too many further tests while I'm waiting."

Rodney knew when Carson was in a mood to out stubborn him. Saving his work, he hurried to the infirmary where Carson ushered him right into the large Ancient scanner.

"Isn't this overkill for burns on my hands?"

"Aye, if you hadn't also presented with dehydration and low blood sugar." The machine finished moving. "Speaking of which, you've lost weight?"

"You've been on my case about my weight for years."

"I may have mentioned you could afford to lose a few pounds while improving your overall cardiovascular fitness level. However, losing six pounds in two days is never a good sign. What have you been eating?"

Rodney sat up, but Carson held a hand to his chest to prevent him from fully leaving the scanner. "Seriously, Carson, you can't expect me to remember everything I've eaten for two days."

"Fine, start with what you've eaten today. Surely the smartest man in two galaxies can tell me that much."

Rodney crossed his arms, "A power bar, two muffins, a pitcher of iced coffee, and a chocolate milkshake."

"That's all?" Carson asked calmly.

"I was heading to dinner when you called."

"Excellent," Carson said, "I'll accompany you."

"Actually, I planned to eat in my quarter to give the cat bots more training time and—"

"Surely the mess hall will provide them with a wealth of information." With that Carson practically dragged Rodney out of the infirmary by his arm. To the doctor's credit, he didn't say a word when Rodney retrieved the cat bots from his hideaway in the physics lab.

In the mess, Carson stepped ahead of Rodney and asked the server to cut two servings of meat and vegetables into bite sized chunks. He piled that plate beside his food on a single tray and even made Rodney a glass of iced coffee with a straw.

When they sat down to eat Rodney set the cat bots on the table and gamely managed one bite of broccoli with his fork. Moving his fingers no longer hurt nearly as much as before, but the way he needed to pinch and grab the fork brought tears to his eyes. Rodney chewed thoroughly, refusing to look up, and hoped Carson would get called away for some emergency.

Carson barely waited for Rodney to swallow before saying in a low, too kindly voice, "Burns are among the most difficult injuries to treat for pain. Let me guess, you've been too proud to ask anyone for help."

"I'm the Head of Science!"

"So you've engineered your bots to help you?"

"Maybe if they hadn't been shot at." Rodney huffed. "Right now it would be like using an adjustable wrench in place of silverware."

Carson nodded. "You said they could perform minor mechanical functions as output. So, an adjustable wrench could hold a skewer quite effectively."

Carson was gone and back in a moment with two metal kebab skewers. He reached across the table and skewered alternating bites of meat and vegetables until they were all collected. "I'll instruct the servers to present your food this way as long as needed. Now, show me what your bots can do.

"Spock Two, extend tool arm." Rodney visualized and pantomimed the motion as he said the words. He hadn't tried anything like this with his three-week-old bots, so he had no idea what the rebooted bots could manage. He was pleasantly surprised when Spock Two successful produced a metal probe with a sharp point.

"Copy me," Rodney said as he picked up a skewer and rotated his plate so the second skewer took the same position. Pinching a skewer and holding it horizontally in front of his face hurt more than his first bite with the fork. Luckily, the bot obeyed instantly. It produced a tip very similar to a small adjustable wrench and moved to grasp and then lift the skewer. Rodney knew this mimicking ability was part of the preset the bots began with. "Stay in that positions until I say otherwise."

With Spock Two committed to holding half his dinner, Rodney set the other half down in the established pick-up location and set his mind to eating. Life being what it was on Atlantis, few of their fellow diners spared Rodney and his bot more than a second glance. Rodney told himself they were looking at the bot and not him while he argued with Carson about the best types of food on a stick. (The argument was mostly to avoid unwanted medical advice. Rodney knew that a bacon-wrapped corn dog was the best food on a stick ever invented.)

That night when he was tired, Rodney slept in the ARV. He dreamed about designing a better map of the city, one that could superimpose any technology or hazard listed in the database over the relevant room or sector. When his bladder and the timer agreed that he'd slept for over eight hours, it was still only two in the morning. Rodney scooped up his cat bots and hurried to his most recent workspace.

*

After the next morning's run, John didn't spot Rodney when he and Ronon passed the ARV lab. John waved Ronon off to the mess as he made a quick check of Rodney's hidden desk. Sure enough, he found the scientist typing away in his rumpled clothes from the day before.

"Rodney," John said.

"Working," Rodney said. He seemed to be using mental control to trace down a linkage diagram on the Ancient console, but he was using his fingers to type very lightly.

"Does Carson know you're working?"

"Cleared for limited duty," Rodney said without a break in his work.

"Does he know you're typing?"

"Good for circulation if I do it right."

"And I suppose sleeping is optional?"

At that, Rodney finally turned from his work. "What is your problem?" Rodney's raised voice and waving hands were the closest John had seen to normal since the accident. It made John warm inside until Rodney continued his rant. "I am not military for you to command. Letting you take charge of one sexual encounter does not make me submissive to you. My injuries do not make me dependent, and accepting a chocolate desert does not mean I owe you anything. Maybe I don't have the right social skills to figure out what you want or why you keep bothering me, but if you can't understand what I'm saying, you can always waste my minions' time having them spell it out for you."

"Whoa." John held up his hands and swallowed back the chill that had formed inside him. "Anyone but you would be eager to blame that rant on lack of sleep. I was just asking as a friend."

Rodney turned back to his computer as he muttered, "Since when does a friend threaten to tattle to my doctor? Are you five? I was never very good at the friend thing anyway, so I'm focusing on using my brain and training my own replacements now. Feel free to stay away if that's not acceptable to you."

"Oookay, clearly this isn't a good time to talk. I'll just go beat up some Marines or something."

John went and beat up a punching bag instead. When Ronon found him an hour later, John asked, "Did Rodney ever show up for iced coffee?"

"No. You know why?"

John just hit the bag harder, grunting out some curses.

"Wanna spar?" Ronon asked.

"Sure." John got his butt kicked, but it helped.

It wasn't until Rodney missed lunch and none of the kitchen staff remembered seeing him all day that John picked up a fortified chocolate shake and headed back to the physics labs.

There was no sign of Rodney anyway, so John finally asked Zelenka, "Do you know where Rodney's hiding?"

"Why should you find him?" The Czech didn't look up from the sensor he was dissecting, and his voice was cooler than John remembered having directed at him before. John suspected he'd overheard Rodney's morning rant.

"I brought him a chocolate shake. It's melting."

"So American. You no have any idea."

"Feel free to give me hints." John tried to lighten the mood. "I may not be as brilliant as you science guys, but I'm pretty sure bringing chocolate to Rodney is always a good idea."

Zelenka sighed and ran grimy fingers through his hair. "I will send you another power point later. Am busy now."

"Uh, thanks, I think." John didn't know what else to say. "How about I leave the chocolate shake on Rodney's desk over here, and I'll get out of your way."

That evening John received a two page power point from Zelenka. The first page listed ways of offering comfort or showing affection. One of the options was offering gifts, including food, so John thought he was partially vindicated. The second page had two questions: What means the most to you coming from others? Do you know what means the most to those closest to you?

John didn't know either answer, so he went looking for Teyla. He found her out on the pier with Torren and Kanaan. Torren ran to John holding out his arms. John grabbed the boy's wrists and spun him around in circles until he couldn't walk straight. John could probably have walked fine, but he stood still for a few moments as Kanaan and Teyla looked on with dopey parental smiles.

"Good to see you out tonight, John," Teyla finally said. "Will you stay to watch the sunset?"

John wanted to talk to Teyla alone, but he didn't want to interrupt her family time. He looked around the mostly deserted pier, trying to decide whether to excuse himself or stay and be social.

Teyla saved him by saying, "Come, walk with me while we wait."

Torren seized the opportunity to drag his father away to see something in the water off the edge of the pier. John fell in step with Teyla and said, "I'm a little concerned about Rodney."

"In what way?" she asked.

"Well, he hurt his hands, but he doesn't want any help. And I think he might be really mad at me for a couple things. But I don't know if I screwed up or he's just extra cranky and sleep deprived."

Teyla waited, as if she knew his list wasn't finished.

"And Zelenka might be mad at me, too. He sent me a power point that I don't really know what to do with."

Teyla nodded. "Perhaps you should start with the last. It seems most specific, and Zelenka may know more about the situation than either of us."

John shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to feel like an idiot. "So I brought Rodney a chocolate shake, because I think he skipped breakfast and lunch. I brought him one yesterday, and he seemed happy enough to eat it. But today I couldn't find Rodney anywhere, and Radek sort of implied I shouldn't be looking for him. So I left the shake on Rodney's desk, and later Radek sent me this Power Point with a list of ways people offer comfort or show affections. It was just common sense stuff and included giving people things, like the milkshake, or saying stuff, touching, spending quality time, and so on. But then the second slide wanted me to know which of those mattered most to me and which mattered most to the other person. It didn't really make sense to me. It seems like any of them should be good enough, right?"

Teyla didn't nod, so John knew she had something to say. He waited.

"John, can you remember the last time someone gave you something that made you feel better, made you feel loved or cared for?"

"Mmm, you gave me that red and purple rug at the big harvest festival with the bonfire. That was just a couple weeks ago."

"I am glad you appreciated it. What did you do with it?"

John cringed slightly. Teyla raised an eyebrow at him.

"It's on a shelf in my closet right now. But sometime I'll rearrange my room and find a good spot for it."

"So you appreciated the gift, but it's not something you keep out to look at or that you think about much." Teyla stopped and set a hand on his shoulder. "This is fine John. I am pleased you thought of it so readily now, and I did not expect it to mean any more to you than that." She looked out into the wispy clouds above the sun's current level and asked, "Can you remember Rodney reacting strongly to anything he's been given?"

"Chocolate. Coffee."

"Yes, but is he more pleased when he is given them than when he obtains them for himself?"

"A little, maybe?"

"That is probably true. You may understand him better than you think."

"But I can't think of anything else someone gave or did that mattered to him more."

"Nothing? Ever?"

John tried to remember a time when Rodney seemed truly happy. "He really liked playing that game with Geldar and Hallona until we realized we were messing with real countries on a real planet."

"And why do you think he enjoyed that?"

"He liked playing god and feeding his already immense ego?"

John smiled sideways in a way that charmed most people, but Teyla only raised an eyebrow at him. "Why would he enjoy that more as a game than when he found a whole society to treat him as a god?"

"Okay"—John pushed down the lump in his throat that tried to prevent this sort of discussion—"if I had to choose from Zelenka's list, I'd guess the game maybe counted as spending quality time together."

"Good, what else mattered to him?"

"When we said we liked him better than Rod. So that would be using our words, right?" John felt like he was back in school.

"I learned from that, too." Teyla's serious tone made John listen. "That moment combined with what we saw of Rodney's interactions involving his sister and Rod showed me how little Rodney believed in his own worth, aside from his intelligence."

It was John's turn to nod. He knew what Teyla meant, but hearing it spoken made him uncomfortable. He remembered the night he'd spent on the pier with Rodney when he was suffering from the parasitic disease called Second Childhood. Both spending time with John and talking had been important to Rodney in his least guarded moments. The talking had been hard for John even then. But he'd been happy to give Rodney all the time and attention he wanted, even when he'd lost most of his intellect. If Teyla was right, maybe that was something Rodney needed to hear spoken, and then maybe they could work back to spending time together again.

"The sun is nearly set." Teyla pointed to the red and orange horizon. "Do you believe you understand enough?"

"At least enough to try again. Let's head back to watch the sunset with your family."

*

Rodney hadn't made it to the mess hall for coffee that day. At some point Miko set a travel mug of coffee and a skewer with ham and fruit (no citrus) on his desk. As soon as she left, Rodney asked Data Two to hold the skewer the way Spock Two had the day before. He gave in and used the sides of his hands to lift the coffee himself. It was painful, but he wasn't sure he could have managed it a day before. He counted that as a small success.

Mid-morning, he had a much greater success. After hours of trying to manipulate the database to link key location words to a map of Atlantis, the system offered him an option resembling hypertext, allowing him to use map locations as key words to link to files that mentioned the location. As soon as that was put in place, the map Rodney had been working on filled with layers and layers of information. It was a mess, but it was the best database search tool Rodney had found in seven years on Atlantis. He acknowledged it might only have become possible with the extra ZPMs added before flying to Earth, but still, Rodney was practically vibrating with excitement.

The cat bots working alongside him on his desk both hummed. Rodney told himself the sound was not a purr, no matter what certain spiky-haired commander-types might have said at senior staff.

When a call came in about a suspicious rattling sound and vibrations in what was presumed to be a residential tower, Rodney tried zooming in to the location on his map. For the first time, his challenge wasn't too little information but too much. Rodney took the diagnose and repair assignment himself, hoping he could zero in on what was rattling on site and then use his new map on one of the Ancient data pads. He packed his computer, data pad, and cat bots in one shoulder bag and slid an already packed tool kit over the other shoulder. If the job turned out to require more manual dexterity than he or the bots could manage, Rodney figured he could call in a minion once he'd diagnosed the problem. It felt good to get out of the central tower and off his butt for a while.

The rattle had been reported by a patrol passing outside tower fifteen. Rodney followed the sound until he was standing in what might be a bedroom with a window facing what was probably once a garden in the center of the tower. The window had a grating over it, but the polymer the Ancients used in place of glass retracted in response a mental command. Even without being able to put his head through, Rodney could tell the sound was coming from much higher up. He used his map to zoom in on the skylight and central shaft of tower fifteen.

There was still far too much information, including plant care instructions for what had apparently been some sort of park or garden at the bottom. Rodney thought he should tell a botanist about that, if he ever had the misfortune of speaking to a botanist again. Rodney started dismissing notes on plants, pollinators, art, seasonal displays, and mood lighting. Of the remaining tags that he understood, the ventilation system seemed the most likely to be causing a rattling noise and vibrations. Unfortunately, there were ventilation openings on two or more sides at every level of the twenty story tower and the transporters weren't powered in the unused tower. Rodney started trudging up stairs, stopping to open windows and listen on each floor.

He was two stories from the top when the sound seemed to be echoing from the wall just above a bedroom window. At this level, there was plenty of natural light, although some came through in odd colors from the Ancient equivalent of stained glass and a really large mobile made of the same translucent, glass-like material.

Based on his new and improved map, Rodney suspected something had been partially sucked into an air intake above the window. The window retracted on command as had the ones further down, but to access the air intake, he'd have to convince Atlantis to withdraw the grating in front of the window. Atlantis was surprisingly stubborn about removing what amounted to a baby proofing device, but eventually Rodney's mental commands won out and the grating slid aside.

Rodney braced himself with a hip and one elbow against the window frame, carefully not using his hands. He leaned out and looked up.

The air intake was silent and perfectly functional. A red glasslike piece of the mobile, about the size and shape of a car windshield, seemed to have been sucked up against it and was wobbling back and forth. That wobble against the air intake created the sounds and vibration the patrol had reported.

Rodney was just about to duck back in and call someone with two good hands to deal with the art emergency when the big red thing fell, slamming into Rodney's shoulder and back where they protruded from the window. The force might have been enough to topple Rodney down the center of the tower, but his hands instinctively grabbed the wall to steady him.

He didn't fall. But his hands hurt like he'd squeezed a cactus, and the impact to his shoulder and back forced the air right out of his lungs. Worse yet, the red windshield of Ancient art seemed half wedged in the window with Rodney. He couldn't move. Maybe he could use his outside hand to push the art piece up and away, but that much pressure on his hand would be agony. There was also some chance he'd lose his balance and fall.

Using his outside hand to hit his radio and call for help seemed like a better plan, though now that he'd passed the first wave of pain from his hands holding him steady, Rodney was reluctant to let go.

His cat bots started making R2-D2 noises, somewhere between inquisitive and concerned, and Rodney had an idea.

"Spock Two, climb to the window sill."

"What?" the bot answered, probably meaning it didn't understand well enough.

"Spock Two, pull yourself to the bottom of the window opening, behind my hip. Brace yourself there."

Talking with the object pushing against his back made Rodney pant a bit, but the bot seemed to have no trouble understanding his words. Spock Two extended two tool arms in addition to the multiple small appendages it used as legs, and easily maneuvered to brace itself on the windowsill.

"Data Two, pull yourself to my right shoulder. Brace between that and the edges of the window without touching the red object."

Data Two easily climbed to the window sill but then moved slowly to Rodney's shoulder and braced itself. Rodney guessed it was monitoring his medical data to make sure it didn't cause him further harm or stress.

Once both bots were in place, Rodney said, "I want the red object pushed away from the window and off me so that it falls down this central shaft. I can push where it rests on my shoulder and back. Can you both calculate the best way to help push so the red object falls but neither of you bots nor I fall?"

"Calculation complete," both bots answered in near unison.

"Good. Push now."

Rodney's push was a glorified shrug, and he doubted either bot could exert much force given their available tools and positions. So he was surprised when the windshield sized object shifted immediately and fell. There was a loud clatter at the bottom of the shaft that vibrated up the walls. It didn't sound like the Ancient version of art glass even broke with the impact.

Rodney told the bots to climb back to the floor. Then he pulled himself back, bearing most of his weight on his already sore elbow. With that and his now bruised shoulder, he couldn't carry both of his bags back to the central tower. Rodney eased himself down to sit against the wall with a bot on each side. The bots moved right up against him and made a noise John would surely call purring. Rodney figured his pulse or blood pressure was probably too high.

Most of the time, Rodney wouldn't have hesitated to call one of his minions or a Marine to carry tools for him. But losing the use of his hands and his recent encounters with John had somehow made Rodney resent having to ask for or accept any form of help. Except he didn't mind help from his bots. Rodney wondered if other people would feel better about accepting help or advice from his bots than they did from him.

Eventually, Rodney pushed himself up the wall and told the cat bots to climb back in the bag with the laptop and data pad. He could leave the tool bag for whomever he sent to check the stability of the rest of the mobile and maybe run some tests on the fallen red piece. With his single bag over his good shoulder Rodney made his way back to the central tower. He stopped by the mess and let his bots hold his skewers of teriyaki chicken as he watched the sun set. Then he returned to his desk to find a long melted milkshake. But chocolate was always good.

*

When John couldn't sleep without checking on Rodney, the first place he looked was the ARV. The room was dark until he entered, and he found the ARV hatch ajar. A quick glance inside showed no Rodney, but there was a pillow and a throw blanket Teyla had given Rodney. So the scientist had clearly made himself comfortable in the machine he'd placed off limits to everyone else. John could only shake his head at such typical McKay arrogance. Of course, his next urge was to climb inside and try it out himself.

Rodney had said the problem with the machine was fixed. Whatever had burnt Rodney's hands and kept him inside was officially no longer a problem. The question was: why didn't Rodney want anyone else to use the machine?

John knew he was going to try it, and he wasn't going to ask Rodney first. But he'd lived in Pegasus long enough to take some precautions. He couldn't ask Ronon or Teyla. They'd guess the personal part too fast. He couldn't ask any of the science staff. So he radioed the Marines walking the central tower night patrol to meet him at the lab.

Sergeants Markham and Stackhouse arrived within two minutes. He knew the two liked patrolling together, and while he felt no need to ask even with the repeal of DADT, John was pretty sure they were more than friends. Not that it mattered when the two came to attention and saluted as smartly as anyone on Atlantis night patrol ever would.

"At ease. How often do you pass this lab on your rounds?" the Colonel asked.

"Every twenty or thirty minutes, sir," Stackhouse answered.

"Good. See how the door to this device is ajar? It's now your job to check that it's never closed all the way. If it is, open it and check inside. Under no conditions will you think any commands at the device or go inside. Any problems, you call me and, if needed, a med team. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," both men answered.

"Good, dismissed."

As soon as the Marines were gone, John climbed into the machine, pushing Rodney's blanket and pillow to one side. He closed the hatch. The latch sounded like a softer version of a Puddle Jumper ramp sealing shut. John liked that sound. Then the floor heated, and John realized it had extra give. It was meant for someone to lie down and be comfortable. Fantasies of puddle jumper sex that he'd imagined over the years flared up with the idea of a warm, comfortable floor. It was easy to imagine that option added to his Jumpers.

Relaxing back, John thought the machine on. The ceiling filled with an image of a very naked Rodney with John on the puddle jumper floor. John looked to the right in momentary embarrassment and saw another Rodney and John lying in the ARV watching themselves lie together in other realities. John turned his head to left and saw himself blowing Rodney in the scientist's large bed with the special mattress from Earth. It could have been his reality from a few days before, but the Rodney squirming in ecstasy had his hands buried in John's hair rather than wrapped in medical gauze. John couldn't make himself look away from that one. Rodney's face was just like John remembered, sweaty and flushed. His eyes were half closed, lids fluttering over blown pupils. Without any sound, the gasp as Rodney came was an open mouth and extended neck. John's mouth opened in imitation and his cock jerked as Rodney spasmed, clearly coming down the other John's throat.

John asked the viewer for something different. He was surrounded by images of himself and Rodney tangled together, obviously post-coital: in the jumper, in Rodney's bed, in John's bed. John pulled the blanket Rodney had left between his legs and buried his face in Rodney's pillow. This was too much. No one should have to see what they couldn't have this way.

But Rodney had seen it. Rodney had seen it all and acted strangely toward John afterward.

Once John regained control of his body, he mentally shut down the ARV. He commanded the door to open and climbed out, leaving the hatch ajar so his patrol wouldn't have to stop for it. Then he set out to find Rodney.

Although it was well past midnight, John found Rodney working away at the Ancient console by his hidden desk. Both of his bots were whirring from the sides, sounding like earth electronics with fans, even though John knew they could be silent. John stood and watched for several minutes before clearing his throat.

"Working."

John bit back any reply that might sound controlling or reference medical advice. That left only, "Watcha working on?"

"I'm using the Ancient version of hypertext, well, hypermedia, to link database information to a map of Atlantis. There's so much of it that I wanted to color code overlays for various sciences, art, history, and so on. But the bots seem to have come up with a new algorithm for overlays I hadn't thought of. I'm constructing an interface now."

"You can do all that mentally?"

"The slow part was having the bots tell me their information verbally. I understand the security concerns, but that's going to be very inconvenient in a crisis situation."

John bit his tongue again and just said, "Huh." He leaned closer to see the new interface, and the warmth radiating from Rodney's body was enough to remind him of what he'd just seen in the ARV. "This has an overlay for weapons? Does that mean Ancient weapons since they're not in our armory or emergency stashes?"

"It means something in the database mentions weapons in those locations. All of this is old information, but better too much than too little."

"I can agree with that, so long as no one misuses it."

"For now, I'm the only one with access to this program. I'll try to have an alpha version ready by senior staff."

"Cool. And cool about the bots, too."

Rodney smiled. The bots purred. John did not point out the purr sound. He was secretly glad they weren't running away from him. Maybe it meant that Rodney had forgiven him for breaking the previous versions.

After a while Rodney's screen stopped changing and the scientist turned to face John. "Is there a reason you're here?"

"Just wanted to hang out." John tried to look relaxed, but he wasn't near anything suitable to lean against.

Rodney glanced back at his screen. "I may hang out, or more likely work, at such hours. But I'm guessing you came to chase me off to bed."

"Only in the most totally non-controlling, non-patronizing of ways."

"And how would nagging me to go to bed be non-controlling or non-patronizing?" The threat of temper in Rodney's expression was more of a turn on than John wanted to admit, even to himself.

"If my motives had nothing to do with sleep."

"Okay, that might count as non-patronizing, so long as neither of us has a daddy kink, which I'm going to assume not. But non-controlling?"

"What, you want me to wait until you ask?"

"I wasn't going to ask. I don't have time for all this nonsense."

"Oh," John tried not to show how much Rodney's easy dismissal hurt. "Just tell me one thing then and I'll get out of your way. Did something you saw in the Alternate Reality Viewer make you pissed at me?"

"What?" Rodney flung his arms to the side. His hands flexed almost normally, but his right arm seemed to hitch. John hardly had time to think about that before Rodney was talking again. "What could I see in the ARV that has anything to do with you? The only image where I saw another person with me, it was too dark to tell who it was. And I'm not pissed at you. I just don't think I can do even casual sex with someone who has to be so dominant all the time."

"I don't have to be dominant all the time. I just don't want you to hurt your hands!" John couldn't believe he'd just shouted that in the middle of a science lab. He could only hope the place was as empty as it seemed. "Can we possibly discuss this someplace else?"

Rodney rolled his eyes, but said, "Fine, my room." His bots scurried into a shoulder bag that already held a laptop and data pad. "They're definitely learning," Rodney muttered as he slid his left arm through until the bag rested on his shoulder.

Somehow Rodney stayed silent until the door to his room closed and the bag was safely in one corner. Then the scientist rounded on John, forcing him back up against the door. "You do remember the last time you were in this position? You didn't seem very interested in being dominated then."

"Woah," John said. "It's a totally different thing to tell me not to act dominant all the time than to expect me to get turned on by being dominated. If you really want to try some sort of BDSM stuff, we can talk about that, but I don't know if I can get turned on by any of it. I'm sure we've both got baggage." John held his hands open and out to his sides, trying to calm himself and Rodney down at the same time. "But I like you, and I'd like to have sex with you again. I guess this is where we're supposed to talk about no go lists and staying the night and all that stuff. If you even want me here."

"Does this approach usually work for you?" Rodney still stood very close, trapping John against the door, but the rising tone at the end sounded more like real curiosity than sarcasm.

"I told you, most of my experience has been in bars. A nod is often the only communication needed."

"And with women?"

"I'd never make this kind of effort for a woman."

"But you were married!"

John rubbed behind his neck. "Talk about being dominated. She told me what to do, and I did it."

"But not because it turned you on."

"I just wanted to stay in the Air Force. She said relationships didn't have to be about sex, but I don't know anything about relationships either. Look, if you're trying to find out if humiliation turns me on, it really doesn't. I can handle it if you're pissed and need to yell at me, but I'd rather do something more fun with you, that is, if you want."

*

Rodney hesitated. He believed every word John said, but a lot of it didn't fit with the man he thought he'd known for seven years. Still, he was a genius and could deal with a paradigm shift. Whatever sense he eventually made of it all, he'd have to be a fool not to take what John was offering now. So he stepped up close until his clothes brushed John's. He felt John shiver at the contact, and that was a total turn on.

Rodney pressed in closer and rubbed the backs of his hands up and down John's sides. Rodney could feel that John was hard this time. Rodney shifted so their erections brushed together, and every muscle in John's body tensed, but he didn't take charge. Rodney leaned in and claimed John's mouth. He nibbled the bottom lip and slid his tongue in to explore along John's teeth. He could taste traces of teriyaki chicken and peppers from dinner. When he traced along John's tongue, there was answering movement. John hummed deep in his throat and responded eagerly, but he let Rodney control the kiss.

John's hands pressed hard against the door. The military commander was clearly working to let Rodney lead, and Rodney wished that he could do more with his hands on John. For tonight, he'd have to be creative. He shifted back a step and let the backs of his finger drift across John's nipples. John stifled a sound and bit his lip.

"It's okay to let the noises out, John. These rooms are very well soundproofed, and I'm happy to hear you."

John moaned softly as Rodney persisted in teasing his nipples.

"Take your shirt off, John."

This time John went slowly. It was nothing like the last time Rodney told him to take off his clothes. John crossed his arms in front of his face and used his fingers to gather the shirt up a little at a time until it was bunched beneath his arms. Rodney had plenty of time to move his hands. He didn't want his first touch on John's bare chest to be the gauze wrapped behind his fingers. Instead Rodney leaned forward and kissed below the trailing edge of John's shirt.

When the nipples were bare, Rodney sucked one slowly into his mouth and John froze, breath hitching, finger clenched tight in his own shirt. Rodney continued sucking the same nipple as it grew hard and red. John moaned and then suddenly pulled his shirt the rest of the way off.

Rodney kissed up to John's neck. He let the backs of his finger trace lightly up John's sides and across his nipples. While Rodney couldn't feel as much through the gauze, John pressed forward into the touch and then pushed his shoulders back against the door, as if trying to keep still. Rodney looked up to see John's eyes, but they were closed. John's lips were trembling.

Rodney leaned in to lightly kiss those trembling lips, and John opened his eyes and gasped when Rodney pulled away.

"Keep your eyes open for a moment and pull my shirt off."

Rodney wasn't vain about his appearance, but he wanted to be skin to skin with John. He could let John take care of the clothes so long as Rodney's hands were busy on John. It turned out John's nipples reacted as strongly to gauze as to Rodney's mouth, so the two of them worked at cross purposes as John tried to remove Rodney's shirt and Rodney kept distracting him. They both watched the play of muscles across each other's arms and chests. Rodney didn't even mind when the shirt passing over his palms hurt a bit. It made everything else he was feeling that much sharper. Everything was so real.

Then Rodney pressed their chests together and licked along the shell of John's ear. John's hips started rocking forward, rutting against Rodney. A rhythmic guttural sound came from the back of his throat. Part of Rodney wanted to just give in. If he let them, they'd both come in their pants before this was over. But since he'd insisted on being in charge, he wanted to give John the blow job he'd promised.

He whispered in John's ear, "Take off your pants now."

John whimpered like it was the hardest thing he could be asked to do. But his hands fumbled to undo the fastenings. Rodney kissed and sucked his way down to John's Adam's apple. John threw his head back. His whole body arched. Rodney had to step back to appreciate the view.

John's eyes flashed open.

"You're beautiful. Let me look for a minute."

John rushed to push his pants and underwear off all at once and toe off his shoes. He kicked the pile aside and stood naked pressed against Rodney's door. His cock jutted out, red and glistening at the tip.

Rodney knew he'd regret it later, but he let himself fall to his knees. He leaned his mouth forward to suck on the leaking crown, and John practically screamed. Then John was panting and Rodney sucked as deeply as he could with just his mouth, hoping John wouldn't thrust forward. Rodney's hands hovered awkwardly with their backs just touching John's thighs, ready to brace himself just in case. But he used his mouth to suck and trace and circle his tongue. John hung on the edge for a long while. Rodney's jaw protested, but he hollowed his cheeks and teased the edge of the crown to keep John panting.

At some point John's harsh breathing turned into a word repeated over and over, "Please."

Rodney couldn't imagine John was asking permission to come. He didn't know if John needed something more, and couldn't stand to pull away to ask. But John had wanted more touch before, had reacted well to even the brush of gauze. So Rodney ran the sides of his arms down John's thighs. He slid them up past John's hips and then over, so the backs of his fingers brushed John's nipples. It made Rodney's shoulder ache where he'd been bruised, but the moans it drew from John were worth it.

Suddenly John bucked and Rodney almost fell over. Instinctively he sucked harder, deeper, holding on with his mouth. John spasmed, coming down his throat. Screaming out his pleasure above Rodney's head. Rodney sucked and swallowed. He kept his hands up against John nipples until John was quiet. Then John's whole body shuddered and he slid down the door as if there wasn't a solid bone in his body.

Rodney let the man slide against him all the way down. His bare chest and face absorbed the sensations from warm sweaty skin, silky chest hair, and stubble on John's cheek as he came to rest face to face with Rodney.

"Please," John whispered against Rodney's ear. The voice was low and cracked, barely recognizable as John.

"What, John?" Rodney kept their faces together, so turned on by the contact that he couldn't back away from the almost limp body pressed between him and the door.

John breathed hard, like he needed to say something, but no words came.

"What do you want, John? Anything you want." Rodney waited even though his knees hurt and his erection was painfully hard against the fly of his pants.

Finally, John whispered, clearer than the last. "Please, let me touch you. Stand up and let me blow you. You can thrust into my mouth if you want, but please, I need to feel you."

The words were almost enough to end it. "I won't last long, but do whatever you want," Rodney said and struggled to his feet.

John hummed as his mouth licked and sucked any bit of skin or clothing in front of it. Rodney leaned his forearms and head against the door above John to support himself as he watched. John seemed almost drugged from his orgasm, uninhibited in a way Rodney had never seen him before.

As John's mouth practically chewed the inseam of Rodney's pants, John's fingers opened the button and zipper. Rodney's erection strained at each brush and tug of cloth. The scientist held onto his control, wanting this for both himself and John. He'd never seen anyone look as primal as John did then, mindlessly mouthing across clothing and skin again as his hands seemed to strip Rodney of their own accord.

Finally, when Rodney was naked and the last of his clothes pushed far to the side, John licked his way up the inside of Rodney's thigh and started sucking his balls. Rodney shuddered and keened. He held on by a thread as John worked his way up, finally swallowing the tip of Rodney's cock and sinking down.

There was no space for John to move, pressed as he was between Rodney and the door. He spent a short time sucking a few inches up and down Rodney's cock, tracing his tongue along the underside. It seemed simple, elemental. It felt too good to last, but Rodney couldn't thrust against John in that position. His body burned with sensation along every nerve. The only cool point was his forehead pressed hard against the door.

His forehead anchored him until John sucked down and swallowed. He swallowed and swallowed until Rodney was coming so deep in John's throat that the muscles swallowing seemed like part of Rodney's orgasm. Only at the end did he feel John's hands on his hips, holding him up. Somehow, John stayed like that. His mouth stayed around Rodney until Rodney's cock started to shrink and slide out. Then John was slack jawed, mouth wet and red. Rodney groaned at the sight even though he was completely spent.

When it looked like John might fall asleep in that incredibly awkward position, Rodney said, "You'll stay in my bed tonight, won't you?"

"Oh god, I hope there's no radio call. I'm not sure I could stand." But John managed to pull himself up against Rodney. They both made it to the bed before passing out in a tangle.

*

John woke to faint morning light and warm soft skin. He was spooned close behind with an arm around Rodney's stomach. His hand instinctively stroked across smooth skin, and John realized Rodney wasn't very hairy at all. John buried his face in the bit of fine silky hair on the back of Rodney's head, amazed again that such a prickly personality came wrapped in such soft packaging.

Rodney's hair was a little greasy and smelled of sweat. John guessed it was hard to wash with injured hands. But it was still soft and baby fine. John let it tickle his nose.

The skin on Rodney shoulder was creamy and hairless. John couldn't help dipping his head to kiss there.

Below the edge of the blanket, he spotted a bruise. Tracing it with his eyes, he saw a long straight line of mottled blue across Rodney's shoulder and back. From the color, it couldn't be more than a day or two old. John would bet it happened when Rodney was hiding the day before. He'd also bet from the lack of ice packs in the room that Rodney hadn't been to see Carson.

John wanted to fetch ice, in case it was still soon enough to help. But he had learned from Ronon's approach to feeding and caffeinating McKay. Their usually high maintenance scientist was rejecting all offers of help at the moment. John had to manage his concern differently now if he wanted to give Rodney what he could. A warm shower would at least relax the muscles around the bruise and increase blood flow. If he worked it right, John might even manage to wash Rodney's hair for him. The thought of running soapy fingers through that hair and over all that satiny skin made John aware that he was more than half hard, leading to other ideas for shower activities.

Rodney sighed and pressed back against John, starting to squirm into wakefulness.

Kissing Rodney's shoulder again, John caught a glimpse of a bot perched on the far side of Rodney's pillow. For a moment, John tensed. Then he forced himself to relax. He was not starting a fight over the cat bots again. Lifting his head to find the second one, John realized that Rodney's top arm rested on a bot in a way that kept his burnt palm off the sheets. While Rodney had very fine sheets, John was slightly pleased the cat bot helped in that way.

John glanced at the picture of Rodney's old cat on the nightstand and imagined that back on Earth he could have woken to real cats in a lover's bed. Of course, the only other person he'd stayed the night with was Nancy, his ex-wife, and she was in no way an animal person. But John wouldn't have minded waking up to cats, so he determined not to mind the cat bots. Not too much.

It occurred to him that moving activities to the shower would also remove them from the bots. But he had to play his cards right. Managing his scientist had always been a bit of a challenge, and John's self-appointed mission included new and possibly volatile variables. He remembered his realizations about Rodney possibly needing words and more quality time, as well as Rodney's previous demands to be in control.

As Rodney's eyes blinked open, John let his hand slide low enough to brush Rodney's pubic hair. A morning erection grazed the edge of this hand, causing both John and Rodney to draw in a breath.

"I like waking up with you," John whispered across Rodney's ear. "I want to touch you. I want to run slippery hands all over you in the shower and rub against you until we both come. But I'd be more than willing to have you tell me what to do and touch, if you want."

Rodney shivered and John nuzzled his neck.

"I've never showered with anyone else," Rodney grumbled half asleep.

John wanted it even more with that admission. He rubbed his entire body along Rodney's back. There was no way the scientist could miss how turned on John was now. The hand John still rubbed in circles, bumped against Rodney's erection again.

"Oh, god, yes," Rodney said. His voice now sounded more breathless than sleepy. "Bots to chargers," Rodney said, and the bots scurried away before Rodney swung his legs out of bed.

John followed him into the bathroom and emptied his bladder as Rodney secured plastic bags over his hands. Then John let himself into the shower first so Rodney could finish his business without interference.

John was starting to worry his physicist had been distracted away when Rodney slid in behind him, rubbing their bodies together in the way John had before.

"Soaps even better," John said as he turned his soapy front to rub against Rodney chest to chest. He also ran soapy hands down Rodney's back. Rodney flinched just a little at the light pass over his bruises. "This okay?" John asked. He timed his question for when their cocks brushed together. No guy could object to that.

Rodney nodded against the side of John's head, which put his hair in the water. John vaguely remembered mornings in the field when Rodney was surprisingly non-verbal before coffee. John took advantage of the quiet assent to grab a bottle of shampoo from a shower shelf while keeping their bodies rubbing together. As John lathered Rodney's hair as well as his own, the scientist ran his arms up and down John's sides, not needing his hands to take advantage of slippery skin. John's skin sang with the attention.

The military man made an effort to combine cleaning with flirting. He kept expecting his injured friend to insist on cleaning himself or to try to take back control in some way, but Rodney continued in his own explorations. The scientist seemed to be cataloging the ways their skin could brush, press, or slide together in various areas. After John rinsed their hair, Rodney's tongue exploring his ear almost sent the pilot to his knees. But he wanted them to both come pressed together. He didn't want Rodney trying anything that might hurt his hands, shoulder, back, knees, or anywhere really. John wanted to make sure they both felt good everywhere. So far Rodney seemed to be going along with the plan.

When John let his soapy finger slide along the crack of Rodney's ass, the scientist's first reaction was to push into the touch. Then he started thrusting against John, pressing back each time into John's hand on his ass. That reaction was so hot, John had to focus on his own control for a moment. He let Rodney set the pace, John's finger sliding lower and lower until it coasted across Rodney's hole.

The genius shivered and pressed close one more time before starting to turn around.

John hadn't expected the change in position. Rodney leaned his forearms against the wall and arched his hips out to rub against John's cock. It was a clear invitation. John's cock wanted to sink right in. But he didn't see any lube or condoms in the shower, and something seemed off.

Rodney was still hard. He'd definitely liked having his ass played with. But the muscles in Rodney's back seemed tighter than a moment before. It could be anticipation of something Rodney really wanted, but he'd lost the sleepy lustful ease of moments before.

John took a step closer, letting his cock slide between the rounded ass cheeks without any threat of pressing in. He swallowed. Rodney's ass looked amazing and felt even better.

"Rodney," John's voice was hoarse as he wrapped his arms around Rodney's chest and abs. He couldn't help but tease a nipple in passing, but he tried not to distract himself from talking. "Your ass is amazing, and I'd love to do what I think you're offering sometime. But is that what you need now? You said you hadn't showered with anyone before. If you have a fantasy about this, I'm happy to do that sometime, but maybe not our first time and not with just shampoo. Tell me what you really want right now."

"I thought—" Rodney began. "Everyone always wants…"

At those words, John knew he'd made the right call. Whether it had been a situation like this or something worse, John mentally cursed anyone who'd cared more about Rodney's ass than the man himself. "I want you Rodney. I liked what we were doing before so much I had to distract myself to last this long. At the moment, I'm turned on by every inch of your skin, so pretty much anything you want is good."

Rodney sucked in a breath and then turned back around. He pressed his entire body along John's front and wiggled until their cocks slid beside each other. "This works for me." He spoke as if none of it mattered. Pressed so close, John could feel the truth. While Rodney might very much enjoy ass play, he relaxed immediately into what they'd been doing before.

John angled them so warm water would heat around Rodney bruises without pounding them. He made sure Rodney didn't need his hands to pull close and thrust against him. Then he slicked up his hands and set out to revisit all the skin he could reach.

Soon Rodney's explorations settled into insistent rocking while his arms slid along John's sides and back. John let himself smile at bringing the scientist back to an almost mindless appreciation of the physical. Rodney felt so right against him. John wanted the experience to last and then repeat day after day.

Sliding a hand between them, John circled his thumb around Rodney's left nipple.

Rodney's lips parted in an almost silent "oh." John had to kiss him.

He leaned in, their lips wet from shower water. So sensitive. John had forgotten how intense a touch of lips could be. He licked along Rodney's lower lip and let his tongue slide into the warm mouth.

Rodney's tongue traced against his like fire. John moaned. Rodney immediately switched to sucking John's tongue at the pace of their thrusting cocks.

John was suddenly moments from coming. He slid his soapy hand that was pressed between their chests down to stroke their cocks. Holding them both, he caressed Rodney's crown with his thumb until they were both grunting. The moment Rodney started to shoot, John followed him over the edge, stroking and kissing until they were both rung out.

John leaned against the wall holding Rodney against him. The shower washed away any mess.

*

Rodney tried to focus on his work as a twinge in his knee reminded him of the night before. He had been improving the algorithms to create his city overlays. His map was good—a hundred times better than what they had used before—but Rodney knew he was missing something.

He decided to quiz his bots and see if that sparked his own thinking.

"Spock Two, what do you predict I will do next with this city map?"

"Link another piece of data to a location."

"What specific piece of data would you predict?"

The bots had been able to download into temporary storage all the Ancient files Rodney was currently scanning. None of their initial search algorithms could process it fast enough to predict Rodney's preferences. So the bot would have to choose a pattern recognition algorithm based on what it had learned from observing Rodney's work with the map so far. In the meantime, Rodney's brain flashed through images of a naked John pressed against the door then later slumped on the floor asking to give Rodney a blow job.

In twenty–six seconds, Spock Two answered with an item number and room identifier. Rodney looked up both numbers and saw a piano-like object found in what might be a music room. It was a good guess for what Rodney would want to link, especially if something from the bots learning had inferred Rodney's interest in piano. Rodney regretted that there was no reasonable way to directly study the bots' progress in deep learning or how it came to that conclusion. At least it wasn't irrational like most humans who believed they made decisions logically even if they were shown time and time again that their brains ran ahead of their conscious thoughts and conclusions.

"It is correct to link that data there, but I probably wouldn't have found that one next. Data Two, what would you predict?"

Data Two answered after three seconds, probably having anticipated the question and decided that three seconds was an appropriate pause in the current conversation. "An overlay of past traffic patterns found at 9898734897."

Rodney input the file identifier and felt his heart speed a little as a data file and graphic representation loaded, showing foot traffic in Atlantis during the year before the Ancients sank the city and fled to Earth. He added the information as another optional overlay on his map. He wondered if Data Two had learned to apply a better pattern recognition algorithm or if it had changed strategies based on Rodney's response to Spock Two. After all, there was a larger pattern of Rodney adding overlays to the map, even if Rodney couldn't consciously predict when he would find one or seek one out.

"That's a good suggestion for what I should add next. What would you generate as my next step after that?"

"Side by side comparison of data from areas with no traffic during period studied."

"Good idea." It wasn't a step Rodney took after each overlay, but the power of cognitive computing was that the bots could learn to act like Rodney by weighing probabilities of his follow up actions, even in novel situations.

Rodney brought the relevant areas up to compare. There were dozens of places no Ancient went that last year, but most of them were far from transporters or only designed for occasional maintenance access. Rodney separated those into another file and studied the remaining results. When he knew his next step would be to separate out areas marked as off limits for safety reasons, he asked the bots for predictions.

They both correctly predicted the results he filed away next.

For a moment, Rodney wished the bots could interact directly with the Atlantis computer system. Then he could assign each of them to work on the problem in parallel with him, or even while he did something else and merely checked their work at intervals. Rodney thought the Ancients were almost as paranoid as their Earth descendents to trust bots trained on him less than they trusted him. That reminded him of waking up with John behind him and bots in front of him. He was annoyed at his continuing distraction but pleased he'd managed a few minutes of focused work without thoughts of John and the night before.

As Rodney studied the remaining areas of the city that no Ancient had visited that last year, he realized he wouldn't have been as happy spending this time doing the work himself if he'd had the option of delegating the work to his bots. Furthermore, if the bots did it and he didn't, they would be learning the way Rodney otherwise would have. In that one small way, they would become more Rodney than the original.

Rodney wasn't sure it mattered whether his bots took over that tiny aspect of his duties, or even of his identity, in his place. But it seemed a more valid concern than the security argument he'd considered before. Unfortunately, nothing the Ancients had left alluded to their reasons for the limitations built into the bots.

Rodney was inspired to try a different experiment. In his office, he set up the laptop with his speech recognition program to record and transcribe. Then he placed Spock Two in front of the microphone and told it to list the next twenty steps Rodney would take with his city map. Rodney quickly left and closed the door behind him so he wouldn't hear the predictions. He placed Data Two where it couldn't observe any of Rodney's work or hear Spock Two for the next half hour until it was the second bot's turn to record twenty steps ahead.

*

A drawing of a cat with tentacles (and a diving helmet) popped up on John's computer screen beside a list titled "Care and Feeding of Dr. Rodney McKay." With almost any other title, he would have called Rodney to complain about spam. Instead he read:

            "1- Never feed him coffee after midnight, unless lives are in imminent danger."

That was enough to convince John that Rodney hadn't sent the list as a joke.

            "2- Provide meals or snacks every three hours when awake. Limit refined carbs, or provide protein to balance when he gluts on carbs anyway. No citrus."

John would have guessed Beckett at that point, excepts the doctor wouldn't use the computer or include a catopus, or whatever the thing was meant to be that was slowly pulling itself up, as if scaling the edge of John's computer screen.

            "3- If he manages to apologize, forgive him."

That reminded John of Doranda, and he quickly read on to avoid remembering how badly everyone in Atlantis had handled that incident.

            "4- Don't humiliate or criticize him when he's exhausted or sad (even if he's mean)."

The way he and Rodney teased each other, that might not be possible or even a good idea. Or maybe some of their teasing didn't count. John certainly didn't mean most of it, and he hoped Rodney understood.

            "5- Don't assume he knows how people feel—tell him!"

He'd broken that rule before he even read it. John hoped whoever wrote the list wasn't the sort to beat up any new boyfriend who hurt Rodney's feelings. Sometimes John wanted to beat up people who hurt Rodney's feelings, but he knew he was guilty sometimes, too. He was also the last person on Atlantis to explain how anyone felt, even himself, but he'd already concluded Rodney need to hear some reassurances. He could try.

            "6- Don't treat him like just an ass."

This was the last item on the list, and before the incident in the shower, John would have thought the meaning was obvious. Now he wondered how much the author knew about Rodney.

It took about two minutes of considering his alternatives before John tapped his radio and said, "Dr. Zelenka, could I see you in my office when you have a minute?"

Zelenka arrived less than ten minutes later, eyes wide behind his glasses and speaking as he walked through the door. "Yes? Has there been incident with American _voli_?"

John turned his computer screen, "I wanted to ask if you sent this or knew who did. It just popped up on my screen."

Radek read the list, smiling in the middle. "Is good advice. Does it matter who gave it?"

John had learned enough about reading people during interrogation to see that Zelenka wasn't at all worried about the hacker and probably knew who it was. But John would bet money the list hadn't come from Zelenka.

"If you think I don't need to know, I'll trust that," John said.

Radek ducked his head and hurried out the door. Before it shut, he peeked back in and said, "You ever play 'One World' game on science server?"

"Nope," John smiled and shook his head. "You think I'll like it?"

"Not especially." With that the scientist left for real.

Not having any illusions about what Zelenka expected him to do next, John brought up the game 'One World' from the science server. It looked very retro, like Excaliber or some computer role playing game John had played in college. There wasn't any company logo, just a basic Creative Commons license, so John was curious even before he clicked through character generation and discovered none of the options were human or even a recognizable species. John ended up creating an amphibious dragon whose body looked a bit like a dolphin with duck feet. To add skills to his character he was forced to accept recurring needs. He ended up addicted to moonjuice, needing to eat seaweed and pinecones daily, and having to find two mates of different genders (there were many diverse genders and sexualities inherent in the game design) every month. But his dragon could do everything a puddle jumper could as well as spit fire or steam, so John was pretty happy for a while.

It turned out feeding his dragon-self depleted local resources in just a few game days, so he either had to keep moving or make barter arrangements for food. Moonjuice he couldn't find any way to access other than trade, and all he had to trade was his flying, swimming, or fighting skills. Then he scrambled to find mates by the end of the first month and found out sex could also be bartered for food or moonjuice.

While the game looked like old animation, the sensibilities were far different from any game John had played in college. When he leveled up the first time, he learned about guild associations. The second time, he stumbled across some secret or criminal guilds. By dinnertime, he wasn't sure if he'd sold himself into slavery or become a kept dragon.

He swung by Rodney's main lab and managed to drag the physicist (and bots) to the mess hall. Rodney almost choked on his first bite of kabob when John asked, "You ever played a game called 'One World?'"

"Where did you find that? A horrible remnant of Kusanagi's misspent youth. She programmed that drivel before she learned real hacking skills, and it took over the whole lab once at a surprise birthday party for her. Maybe she turned forty? I have no idea how old she is, but what grown up wants to celebrate turning any age with a game she programmed at fourteen? I was forced to be some hybrid octocat creature with a pickle farm. And the only characters who would trade chocolate for pickles were these amoeba things that needed to mate with one of my tentacles before they could fission. The whole experience took away hours I could have spent working. I may have been traumatized for life."

John was pretty sure Miko couldn't take him out in a fair fight if he hurt Rodney's feelings, but she could clearly hack her way into his computer. She was also one of the few gene-carriers that Atlantis seemed to favor more than John in certain situations, so he'd have to be careful.

"I made an amphibious dragon that was sort of like a puddle jumper."

"Of course you did. Was that on your schedule as military exercises?"

John smiled at the insult. "You think puddle jumpers would be better with flame throwers?"

Rodney rolled his eyes as he chomped at his kabob.

"We'd need to check the atmosphere for oxygen and hydrogen and stuff before using them, but think of the night time air shows we could do." John mimed pretend explosions with his hands.

Rodney smiled crookedly as a bit of juice dripped down his chin. John wanted to catch the drip on his finger and lick it, but he held back. Even if DADT was history and it was okay for others to know—even if Miko had already found out somehow—John wanted a little more time to sort things out privately between himself and Rodney before acknowledging the change to their whole tight-knit community.

#

When John followed Rodney back to his room after dinner, it finally settled for the scientist that John saw what they were doing as a relationship. The first blow job had been amazing, but Rodney hadn't even been sure if John was interested in him or just coming out and being nice to him in some inexplicable flyboy way. Their second opportunity had failed miserably, but Rodney realized he'd been hurting and hurtful that night. It was a wonder John had tried again. But the last night and morning had mattered in a way nothing, even with Jennifer, had ever mattered to Rodney before. Rodney didn't know exactly what was stealing his attentions from his work, but it was more distracting than most Ancient outposts they'd discovered.

John didn't stay by the door when it closed. He moved across the room to lean against Rodney's desk. "I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but we should probably talk."

"About what?" Being in his room with John had him half hard already. It was crazy, and fascinating.

"Um, what you want, no go lists, if I'm stepping on any toes?"

"Okay," Rodney moved to his desk chair and sat so his knee brushed against John's. The big bad Colonel shivered at the tiny touch.

"I'm not sure I can talk if we're doing stuff."

"Stuff?" Rodney teased. "You call it stuff if our pant legs are touching?"

"I could tell you how long I've wanted you, but it would only feed your ego."

Rodney felt himself smiling before he even thought about it. "I'll try to only let it go to my little head. But unless you want me to start asking about your fantasies, which I'm pretty sure will distract both of us, you should probably say what you want to say."

"Were you previously involved with Miko?"

"Miko?" Rodney wondered what put that idea in John's head. "She's not my type, and I generally don't screw around with my minions."

"Someone sent me a list of rules for being with you and after Radek saw it, he sent me to the game Miko wrote. And your octocat showed up with the list."

Rodney slid the back of his hand up the inside of John's thigh to reassure him, but John's reaction was much stronger than he'd expected. He wasn't sure if John was extremely horny or if this attempt at discussion left John wide open in every way, but John was right. It wasn't going to work to talk like this.

"How about you let me take charge of both talking and other 'stuff' for a while?"

John nodded and his shoulders relaxed a little. The man wasn't submissive in the usual sense, but he didn't want to be in charge all the time the way Rodney had initially suspected. What they needed to sort out might need more than just a talk, but first, Rodney was pretty sure he needed to get John off to settle the man.

"We might as well be naked," Rodney said. "There's no point to having such a discussion if we can't be up front about everything."

John raised an eyebrow, but pulled his jacket and shirt off easily. It didn't escape Rodney's notice that the military man had stopped talking all together.

Rodney's hands were finally at the point where he could remove his own clothes without too much pain. He had to be careful though, so he missed most of the show John was putting on. When he finished and looked back up, John was once again leaning against the desk, but he was naked and very erect.

"How about we take care of that first? Lay down on the bed." John did as he was told.

Rodney positioned himself between John's legs, leaning forward and touching as much of John as he could with his legs and torso as he bent to nibble at John's nipple. John practically convulsed under him. He spoke between licks, "Were you always this skin hungry, John, or has it built up over time from not being touched enough?"

John shamelessly let Rodney shift and rub against him as he struggled to reply. "Maybe, always. I don't know. Never had a chance to find out."

"What about when you were married? She told you it wasn't all about sex, but did you get enough touch then?"

John whimpered like he couldn't answer, but he wasn't distressed enough to lose his erection. If anything, he seemed to be fighting to keep himself still.

"Touch yourself, John. I'll stay here so you can rub against me, but try to use your hands to show me how you want to be touched."

John started with a move he'd probably seen in porn. He used one hand on the nipple Rodney hadn't touched and traced one of the fingers from his other hand across his mouth. Then he started sucking that finger in a very suggestive way. The whole time, he kept his eyes fixed on Rodney, watching for a reaction.

"You're hot, John. I think you know that. But I want to see you explore your own pleasure. Close your eyes if it helps."

John's brow wrinkled, but he closed his eyes and let his hands move around a bit more. Rodney watched and kept licking one nipple. After a few minutes, John was rubbing the inside of his wrist against his cheekbone and temple while he sucked on three fingers from his other hand. The sucking didn't look nearly as suggestive as before, the fingers barely moving in and out, but John was flushed and gone on it. If John didn't get off on giving up control, he certainly had a willingness to do so for Rodney.

John's nipples were both wet and swollen from Rodney's mouth. His cock slid easily against Rodney's stomach from all the precum that had leaked as John let himself go.

It was easy for Rodney to lick and kiss his way down John's ribs and across his navel before sucking the hard wet cock into his mouth. It would have been better if Rodney had full use of his hands, but John needed less than a minute of hard suction before he was coming down Rodney's throat.

Rodney trusted that John would recover enough to talk in a few minutes. In the intervening time, he kept as much contact as possible and tried to find a comfortable way to lie together that would allow them to easily make or break eye contact. He was pretty sure extensive skin contact relaxed John and allowed him to release his defenses and inhibitions. There was no way that Rodney wanted to take advantage of John or use his need for touch against him. He wanted to make talking easier for both of them and learn as much as he could from the experience.

In the end Rodney settled with his stomach pressed against John's side, his semi-erect cock resting against John's hip, and their legs tangled together. He could prop himself on one arm, with the weight on his forearm, if he needed to see John's face. Otherwise he could rest his head against John's shoulder. The room was warm, so they didn't need covers, and Rodney still had one arm free to wrap around John's chest or stroke him like a cat. When John started to move again, Rodney used that arm to hold him tight.

"You with me again, John? Can you listen to a story?"

"Is that want you want?" John asked, sounding almost normal already.

"Yes. I think you'll find this story helpful for other discussions. It begins with a girl in Japan who never took for granted any of what she was told. She didn't believe girls should prefer dolls and boys should prefer trucks. At school she learned what seemed important to her rather than what her teacher said was important. After school she preferred the company of books to that of other children. And when her family gave her a computer, she programmed a virtual world where no one was just one thing or the other. Every entity had complicated strengths and weaknesses. There were always many alternatives for traits like species, gender, work, hobbies, social associations, living arrangements, and eventually sexuality and criminality. The world she created was more comfortable for the girl than the reality of her parents' house. Using her computer, the girl eventually explored other realities, many involving numbers, programming languages, and machine architectures. Instead of working hard at school and filling out college applications, the girl hacked her way into an online discussion at a famous college in another country. By the time professors there realized she wasn't a student, they wanted her. Caltech sent someone to her house in Japan to explain the situation to her parents."

When he paused to stroke John's hairy chest, John asked, "That's Miko's story?"

"It's what I guess. She doesn't talk much. Even now, her best communications pass through computers."

"Does she have a crush on you or something?"

"Not in the way you mean. Once when I tried to apologize for shouting and making her cry, she sent a message saying I should always be as honest as possible about her work. As a person, she didn't want anything from me except for me to keep being myself as a fixture in her world. Or that's the gist of it. You see, many of the best scientists we've brought here, see the world so differently that it's hard to translate even between those who speak the same language. It's usually easier to share work ideas, but the language used in other domains is less precise and is filled with assumptions various members of my staff question or reject. I'm a little like that, too. There's nothing you could want as far as sex that would disgust me, and if you really don't want to explore anything that hurts me, then the worst that could result is that some things won't turn me on. I'm willing to do whatever you like because you turn me on. I just need to be in control sometimes so I can see you and try to understand whatever's going on my own way. I don't do well with lies or manipulations. Do you understand?"

"Didn't you just say this stuff can't be understood in words? Something about assumptions and each person having to see it their own way?"

"You always were a lot like my scientists."

"Except you don't want to screw them."

"Sometimes I wanted to. Sometimes I did, but not on a regular basis. It's more a guideline than a rule."

"I want you to fuck me," John said as he stretched and arched his back.

Rodney kept stroking his chest and stomach. John might be saying the words, but his body was still fairly sated from the last round. Rodney's cock, however, showed an interest John couldn't have missed. But he was letting Rodney maintain control as they talked.

"You're asking for that instead of to fuck me because of whatever you picked up on in the shower, but I like it either way."

"We should try it both ways then. But right now, you're hard, and I'm relaxed."

John was shifting his hips against Rodney's erection in an intentional way. It felt good, but Rodney liked it better when John acted more naturally. This felt a little forced, and Rodney was trying for just the opposite. "What about talking?"

"It can wait."

"What if I question you while I'm fucking your brains out?" Rodney wouldn't want to do that, but he wondered if it was an issue to John.

"You'll get mostly non-verbal answers."

"I do like you when you're inarticulate. But there are some things that shouldn't be discussed in the moment. I've told you I'm up for almost anything unless we later need to talk about pain. Do you have a no go list?"

"Not really, other than pain and stuff that resembles interrogation or torture." John said it without a flinch, where other people would have triggered just thinking about it. But after all he'd seen John go through in Pegasus, Rodney thought he understood that piece of John's puzzle.

"John, can you tell me honestly what you've done before?" Rodney held John close without flirting as he said it, hoping he could get a serious reply.

"The usual, probably you'd consider most of it tame."

"You've been both top and bottom with a man?"

"Yes, Rodney." John's sarcasm promised he was obscuring some truth.

"How many times since you joined the Air Force?"

"How do you do that?" John asked with a huff. "You claim to have no people skills, and yet, you totally caught that. Once as bottom up against a wall, and it was awful. A couple times as top, also standing up, and I think I made it good for my partners. And my tests are all clean, and it's been long enough to know. Want me to prep myself for you?"

"John, how much of this is for you and how much is for me?"

John threw his hands over his face. "I want you to pound me into the mattress, okay? But if you don't feel like it, almost anything is good."

"You said you don't like pain, but that sort of pounding would make you walk funny tomorrow, even if it hadn't been such a long time."

John's head moved sideways, and Rodney propped himself up so they could see each other. John smiled and popped his eyebrows in a mischievous way that seemed sincerely John, even if Rodney had never seen that exact expression before. "I am a master a hiding injuries, I can certainly cover for a night of rough sex. And I don't mind a little biting or scratching so long as it's hidden by my uniform, not because I'm hiding what I am. I'm just private that way."

"I want to see you prep yourself."

"Let me use the bathroom and wash up first. I'll do all the rest out here with you." Then John was energetically headed for the bathroom and Rodney hoped he could hold it together long enough to give John what he needed with only partial use of his hands.

It turned out, John had very different ideas about prep that Rodney did. After a very nice show of John kneeling on the bed using lube and his own fingers, Rodney asked, "Have you ever used a toy for prep?"

John shook his head, "I can take it now. I want to feel it." But the tightness in every line of his body told Rodney a different story.

Rodney pulled a narrow dildo and some lubricated condoms out of a drawer."Lie down, John. I promise you will feel plenty, and I will make it good for you."

John looked suspiciously at the toy.

"Have you ever used stoplight colors? You can use them here, too. Anytime you say red I'll stop, and we'll switch to something else right away. Yellow and we'll slow it down, maybe change positions or something. Green just tells me to keep going if I have any doubts. Can you put the condom on the toy for me?"

"Why?" John asked.

"I'm a scientist, I know all the best tricks for easy and effective care of my equipment."

John choked out a laugh, "Oh, god, is that a geek version of dirty talk?"

"Only if it works," Rodney said. But as John handed him the sheathed toy and lay back smiling and relaxed, Rodney was convinced it had worked. "Pull your legs up for me."

Rodney teased John's hole gently at first, partly to make the toy less intimidating and partly to experiment with how his burned hands could best do this. He managed to angle the toy in without forcing it, and his fingers only smarted a little.

Still John asked, "You okay?"

Rodney jabbed his erection into John's thigh, "More than okay." Then he pushed a button that started the dildo vibrating. John squeaked, tensed, and then relaxed with a deep breath. "And you?"

"That's different."

"Different good?" Rodney asked as he pushed a little farther.

John sighed and Rodney circled around a bit. "Ooooh," John gasped.

Rodney watched John's cock harden as he worked the dildo side to side and in and out, making sure to pass close to that spot over and over.

Finally John gasped out, "You now, please."

Rodney pulled the toy out and handed John a condom packet. "Put this on me. If you still want a pounding, you should get on all fours. If you want to face me, prop your ass up on a couple pillows."

The words sounded wrong to Rodney as he said them, like less than what he meant. But John didn't seem to care. He rolled the condom onto Rodney and kissed him on the mouth before turning and presenting his ass in the air. His hole was open and glistening. Rodney barely needed his hand to line up his cock. He pushed through the first ring of muscles and John tightened for an instant but didn't flinch. Rodney took his time pushing in and then leaned forward to press along John's back and kiss his spine. "So good. So fucking perfect." He kept mumbling as he kissed and touched John's back.

Finally, when John made a keening sound, Rodney pulled back and snapped in. He did it again and John groaned like he'd been waiting for years. With that, Rodney knew where to aim. If he didn't exactly pound John, he pounded that critical spot until John practically screamed.

"Stroke yourself and come for me, John." John's hand moved fast and with just a few strokes he was coming. The muscles in his ass clenched around Rodney so that he was coming, too. It was all Rodney could do to hold on as an intensity he didn't remember pulsed through his body. His skin tingled. His head swam.

Somehow, he ended up lying on his back next to John, who seemed to be cleaning them both up with someone's tee shirt. "Amazing." John kissed him. "So amazing." Then there were covers and John shifting around and snuggling behind him.

He wanted to make sure John was okay, but a final whisper of "amazing" behind his ear soothed Rodney off to sleep.

*

After R2-D2 appeared inexplicably the middle of a dream about surfing, John woke enough to open an eye and glare at a cat bot. Then he heard a very faint, "Colonel Sheppard, are you there?" The burbling cat bot had been pointing an antennae like appendage at a heap on the floor that must be John's clothes and his radio.

John quietly extracted himself from his soundly sleeping physicist and took his radio and clothes into the bathroom to talk quietly.

"Sheppard here."

"Sir, Markham's team missed check in half an hour ago and did not respond when we dialed in and tried to hail them."

"Call Ronon, Teyla, and the on call security detail to Jumper One. We'll need full rescue kit and be prepared to leave in ten. Sheppard, out."

He stepped into a hot shower for a minute and cringed, because he was going to be sore from last night. But the hot water helped.

He dried and dressed. At least he'd used one of Rodney's shirts to clean them up. Rodney had practically passed out at the end, but the man totally deserved his rest. John had bottomed in the distant past partly to be fair, and definitely that had been part of his motivation with Rodney. But after last night, he had a whole new understanding of how good it could be.

As John crept out of the bathroom, he realized they still hadn't discussed what he should do when called away before morning. Looking around the room, there wasn't any paper to write on. He did notice both bots were back on the bed, and one was protecting one of Rodney's hands again.

John crept forward and kissed Rodney's temple. Then he whispered to the nearest bot, "If you can, tell him I got a radio call but I kissed him goodbye." The bot gave no reply, and John had barely enough time left to get to his Jumper.

An hour later marked the first time John was ever grateful that Rodney had given up regular missions with his team. In the year since they returned to Pegasus, John had often imagined Rodney huffing and pulling faces as they renewed contact with each community and sat through endless speeches and cultural displays. He'd actually missed Rodney's rants about nature and hiking and the scientist's uncanny ability to speak truth to power at precisely the wrong moment. But he never wanted Rodney to see a pile of people who had been killed by being beamed out of a Wraith Dart at altitude. He never wanted Rodney to manhandle their broken bodies aside to try to save at least one living person from underneath.

Sergeant Stackhouse had given his report by radio from under a pile of corpses. "Darts flew in and while we were shooting at them they—sir, I saw them beam the first set of bodies into open air, thousands of feet above me."

Ronon stood guard, blaster pointed toward the tree line as Teyla, John, and four Marines moved bodies. The bodies seemed to be the Andovans, the people Markham's team had come to meet. They farmed something similar to maple syrup, and Atlantis had traded with them in syrup season for the last few years before their unexpected flight back to Earth.

Stackhouse gasped out brief radio reports as they dug. John was guessing from the tone and content that Stackhouse was concussed or possibly in shock. He'd already requested medical support from Atlantis when Stackhouse sobbed out. "I'm not sure they were dead before they fell. I may have heard a scream." Then later he whispered, "Or it might have been one of us screaming—sir, my team isn't answering their radios."

As John moved bodies he barely checked for pulses anymore. They were all so broken. Necks flopped back. Bone stuck out. Some limbs weren't attached to anything. He heard Stackhouse mutter, "The village was empty, we thought being culled was as bad as it got."

At that point, Teyla stood and started talking into her radio, "Sergeant Stackhouse, this is Teyla. I want you to listen to me until we can take you home. You might want to close your eyes. When you are touched by the dead, sometimes it is better not to see. I do not know what happened here, but I can tell you, these people preferred to die this way than as food for the Wraith. All they would want now is for you and anyone else alive in there to survive."

"I think we're close, Teyla. Could you ask him to speak and not to move," John said.

Before Teyla could repeat the instructions, they heard a muffled voice a few feet down, at ground level as they'd expected. "Sir, I can hear you. I'll stay still and keep my eyes closed. But please, don't take anyone away from looking for my team."

As they uncovered Stackhouse's head, Teyla crouched above him and placed a hand on each side. "It's me, Teyla. I'm going to help you keep your head still."

"Can you tell us where you're hurt," John asked. He saw Stackhouse try to shake his head and was glad Teyla was restraining him. "I'm going to pat you down. Tell me if anything hurts. There are plenty of others trying to help your team, and I heard from a jumper coming with a med team." John was patting his way down the Sergeant's body as he spoke. "Does anything I'm touching hurt?"

"I can't feel anything at all, sir." John kept going and told himself paralysis could be temporary.

A few feet away, he saw another uniform being uncovered. By the time he could identify Markham, the Marine who'd uncovered his face said, "He's breathing, sir."

John quickly told Stackhouse, "Markham is alive. We'll keep looking for the rest of your team."

Over the radio he heard Beckett ask, "Is it safe to land? We're right beside you."

"Yes. We have two patients for you so far, both breathing, one unconscious. We're hoping to find at least a couple more."

Beckett marched out of the Jumper as assistants carried a stretcher full of supplies behind him. He eyed the bodies of the locals, spread out now as John's team and the Marines had deposited them in rows beside what had once been a pile of broken bodies. "I see," was all the doctor said as he moved to examine Markham first.

*

Rodney hadn't liked waking up alone. It was ridiculous given how many times he'd woken up alone in his life and how rarely he'd enjoyed waking up with someone else. But he'd had plans (or at least hopes) for the morning—plans that involved John still being in bed with him.

Memories of the night before were again distracting him from his work on map overlays. Sitting at his mostly secluded desk with the Ancient console that had become much more responsive to mental commands since his injury, Rodney wasn't enjoying his work as much as usual. He was missing something and he knew it. Part of Rodney insisted that he should re-dedicate himself to a life of the mind and avoid the inevitable disastrous end to whatever it was he had with John. The thought made his stomach hurt. He tried to ignore it and focus on work.

Eventually he gave up and looked at the transcribed files with his bots' predictions. While he hadn't gone twenty steps out from the point at which he'd asked, whatever pattern recognition algorithm each bot had used would probably have deviated from Rodney's actual choices within two or three steps. At this stage in their learning, without real time input the bots' projections should continue to deviate from Rodney's actions in line with whatever misassumption initially displaced them.

It wasn't much of a surprise to Rodney when he saw the bots' predictions were basically identical to each other. That just meant they'd chosen more or less the same algorithm in the same situation. The big surprise was that their algorithm had led them in a more interesting direction than Rodney's actual efforts. By twenty steps out, they suggested that certain science areas on the map showed significantly less linkage than expected and that files had been unlinked from the Ancient hypertext to hide them.

Rodney suddenly had no problem focusing on his work as he spent the next four hours verifying every step the bots had taken. He was still working frantically when John showed up smelly and dirty beside his desk.

"The mess staff had these ready for you." John set down a chocolate shake and a plate with two meet and vegetable kabobs and one that was berries and cheese.

Rodney might have believed the main course was already set aside for him, but he suspected John had asked for the rest. Some corner of his mind started on a long indignant rant, but his eyes and most of his mind were still focused on the suspiciously under-utilized areas of his map. With so much linkage and so many overlays, the missing information had been easy to overlook. But once he looked, Rodney couldn't argue with his bots' chain of evidence.

"Rodney, I have to get back to the infirmary. Senior staff is meeting at 1600 to discuss the new Wraith tactics, and we'll need to see whatever you have about potential weapons on your map."

Rodney waved a hand, hoping it would end the interruption. John moved the food and shake directly in front of Rodney before he left. Rodney drank the shake because it was chocolate. Eventually he told Data Two to hold his skewers so he could eat while he worked. It seemed like the easiest way to clear his workspace.

Once the food was cleared, Rodney tried to trace evidence of hypertext being deleted by the Ancients. Nothing he came up with worked. While trying, he found evidence that someone else had made similar efforts in the last year. It could be unrelated to what Rodney was researching, but Rodney knew more about uncovering human hacking than whatever the Ancients had done to remove links to his target locations. Rodney started tracing the signs of recent human access instead and found every step his bots had predicted had been done in order by someone before him. The bots pattern recognition algorithm had probably noticed that someone else had taken the same first steps Rodney had the day before. Both bots had independently evaluated that what they'd learned about Rodney McKay matched the pattern of the previous hacker better than any other pattern they could generate. It was an interesting use of what was essentially dark data, untapped access data assigned to each file in the large Ancient repository. In this case, it produced results that might have been mistaken for inductive inference, if Rodney had thought his bots were ready for that.

Rodney was running out of time before senior staff, and he didn't want to present his map until he understood as well as possible what had been hidden by the Ancients and whatever the previous hacker had found.

From all that Rodney had seen that day and all he knew from seven years on Atlantis, it was obvious to his inductive inference that Miko either was the previous hacker or was the best resource to solve the current problem. He sent Miko his files of the bots' predictions and his evidence of whoever had searched for the missing links before him.

The message that came back minutes later included a manipulated picture of the original Spock and Data gazing at each other over the text, "Some things are worth not knowing."

Rodney clenched his fists painfully for a moment. He hated when people told him things like that. But this wasn't coming from "people." It came from Miko. He tried to imagine reasons Miko might think he shouldn't know something she knew or suspected. More precisely, since the message was concise and came from Miko, Rodney suspected the exact words mattered. He tried to imagine what would be "worth" him not knowing.

It made Rodney's brain ache with possibilities. The deadline of the meeting loomed in front of him. Rodney realized that he had a solution to the deadline if not the overall problem.

Packing up his latest laptop and both bots, Rodney made his way to the ARV for a little off the charts thinking time. When he climbed inside, the blanket and pillow he'd left there seemed shifted out of place, but he closed the hatch and lay back with his head on his pillow anyway. Why would the Ancients who had done little or nothing to secure solar system destroying technologies and initially undiagnosable exploding tumors try to hide files in their system? In particular, why would they hide data access linked to a physical location in Atlantis? The hidden information seemed to relate to items in particular science labs, and bad as the nanite virus that Rodney only survived by virtue of his artificial ATA gene had been, it was clearly labeled and not hidden from the new mapping and hypertext systems.

Rodney's mind spun with what the Ancients might consider worse or more worth hiding. The concept of "worth" reminded Rodney of Miko's message. What would Miko suggest was "worth not knowing" and combine with pictures of Spock and Data? Surely the sentiment would have frustrated the fictional characters as much as it frustrated Rodney. While Rodney had no doubt that Miko knew his bots' names without being told directly, he respected that her thinking was convoluted and often subtle compared to his own. The pictures wouldn't be useless decorations or a tribute to the bots involvement in the research.

Much as Rodney objected to the bots being shot, he couldn't imagine anything that would be worth not knowing for the bots sake. But maybe for the sake of their namesakes? The character of Data was a true artificial intelligence and Spock was half-alien and highly intelligent. Rodney could believe something might—maybe, possibly, under some conditions—be worth not knowing to protect other lives, other intelligences, artificial or otherwise. Whatever the bots' potential might be, they weren't intelligent yet. But Rodney had argued on their behalf in senior staff about strong and weak AI and people's irrational, and potentially rational, fears regarding artificial intelligence.

Then it hit Rodney, like the proverbial light bulb exploding, that while an AI might have trouble hiding a physical object, it could easily hide data or links that might lead people to that object. It might not be the Ancients who removed those links. It could have been done while the city was underwater or, more likely, while the city was fully powered and sitting on Earth, where a waking AI might easily realize the dangers or revealing itself.

Rodney had already told the senior staff that if they were worried about AI they should look at the control chair interface first. He'd accepted without question when the Ancient console he was using became easier to control with his mind once he lost the use of his hands. No malevolent AI had taken action against him so far, and it wouldn't have been hard to block Miko and him from finding out as much as they had. Whatever they might be dealing with, and Rodney thought of it as an AI figuring the definition was nebulous enough, it probably knew that Rodney and Miko's first reaction would be to protect it. But if Sheppard as Military Commander or Woolsey the quintessential bureaucrat knew, would they feel required to report their suspicions to Earth? Would Earth react to an Atlantis AI the way Sheppard initially reacted to the bots on Rodney's bed?

Rodney turned his head into his pillow and thought about Sheppard, about John. After all these years on Atlantis, he'd still shot, or at least hit with a gun, first and asked questions later when he encountered the cat bots. It seemed like John was okay with them now, and Rodney had to admit that the initial destruction might have been avoided if he'd introduced the cat bot project more formally and made the effort to educate at least the senior staff ahead of time. Maybe if he spent some time educating the non-science staff about concepts surrounding AI, he could prepare them for whatever hidden information he and Miko might be handling. Of course, there would still be the problem of reactions from Earth if John or Woolsey felt required to report.

It would be easier to not tell them. John had lived with "don't ask, don't tell" just fine it seemed. He apparently had no problem with "not knowing" about some of the relationships in his military command that were pretty much obvious to most of the base. Would he be able to extend the same philosophy to not acknowledging a potential AI? Was it possible John, with his affinity for the city and the control chair, already suspected and that had triggered his first reaction to the cat bots?

Rodney worried that John seemed so central to all his thoughts these days. Even when it seemed almost rational and work related, he was spending far more time imagining John's reactions than Woolsey's.

He even imagined he could smell John on his pillow. There was a trace of the lavender and mint scent Rodney only knew from John's hair. But that was ridiculous. He'd brought a fresh pillow and blanket into the ARV, so no one else could have touched them. Except John had asked if Rodney was pissed at him over something he'd seen in the ARV.

Rodney opened the hatch and scrambled out. With his bots and his laptop he checked records for activation, for someone actually using the ARV to see alternate realities rather than to borrow some extra time. Plain as day, someone had been in the ARV on the day John had asked that question. The man who had complained about Rodney not taking security concerns seriously had intentionally used a device Rodney had put off limits for such use. Rodney was furious as he stormed his way to the senior staff meeting.

*

John felt dirty even after scrubbing and scalding himself in the shower. Killing sixty Genii to defend his people and Atlantis had been nothing like digging through dozens of dead civilians to reach Stackhouse and his team. To save their own, he'd been forced to move those corpses with minimal care and thought at the time. But that sort of mass slaughter always caught up with him eventually.

He didn't eat before senior staff. He couldn't even though he brought food to Rodney. Instead, he spent his time in the infirmary, watching over the two members of the rescued gate team they'd managed to extract alive. Markham and Stackhouse lay in beds next to each other, peaceful for the moment, but surrounded by monitors, tubes, and wires.

When he took his seat in the senior staff meeting, John didn't manage to meet anyone's eyes before Rodney burst into the room.

"You used the ARV after I explicitly put it off limits. You hypocrite! You ingrate! You militaristic self-serving—"

"Dr. McKay!" Woolsey momentarily cut through the rant.

"But he could have—"

"Dr. McKay," Woolsey repeated with less volume but a level of command that sometimes astonished John, "Sit down. Whatever your current concern, you are out of order. You will have to wait for an appropriate point on the agenda. For now, we have two of our own dead and two injured as well as a village slaughtered by a previously unknown form of Wraith attack."

"What?" Rodney practically fell into his chair, barely remembering to protect his hands at the last minute. His already light skin paled. John realized the scientist must have been so caught up in his work and then his discovery of John's unauthorized experiment that he'd missed all news of the latest atrocity.

"Dr. Beckett, if you could give us a brief summary of your findings?" Woolsey prompted.

"Certainly, Sergeants Markham and Stackhouse are both stable. It's too early to tell if each will make a full recovery, but both were conscious at least briefly and passed basic mental assessments." Carson looked down at his datapad then. "Blood and tissues samples suggest that the villagers' bodies were dropped from a height of more than fifty meters, probably rematerialized mid-air from a Dart transport beam. Over forty bodies were dropped directly on top of Markham's team while they were shooting at the Dart. All of the bodies dropped tested positive for the Hoffan drug, so it seems the Wraith orchestrated this display to send a message."

Beckett seemed to have trouble swallowing when he finished, and John knew the man still felt guilty for his progenitor's work on the Hoffan vaccine as well as his own forced efforts to refine it after he was cloned.

"Colonel Sheppard, do you agree this was meant to send a message?" Woolsey asked.

"Stackhouse reported they were shooting at the Dart when it happened, so the Wraith knew they were there. They chose to bomb them with bodies rather than capture the team. I'd have to conclude it was an intentional display, a message about the Hoffan drug seems our best explanation so far. A third of the people who take the drug still die. If they believe the Wraith will kill them anyway, fewer will take that risk. The Wraith will have a greater food supply."

"Teyla, do you agree with that assessment?" Woolsey asked.

"It is unclear how many societies would attempt the Hoffan solution regardless. The Wraith are known to have destroyed Hoff in retaliation, and the drug kills one in three people who try it. Those who would risk it otherwise might do so anyway so as not to provide sustenance to our enemies. I cannot pretend to understand the Wraith, but I do not see what such a message will accomplish other than to spread fear. Perhaps to the Wraith this is a game, as with their creation of runners."

"Dr. McKay, do you have anything to add on this subject?" Woolsey asked.

The normally verbose scientist only shook his head, and John wished he'd known to break the news more gently when he'd dropped off food. "Rodney, do you have the map with weapons locations ready?"

The rest of the table looked surprised. Rodney responded as he usually rallied to any chance to save the day or share his genius. He sat up straighter and pulled on the headset microphone for his speech activated laptop. His commands to the computer were now almost inaudible and he segued naturally to speak to the room in a louder voice. "This project isn't ready for general release, but I'm using a version of Ancient hypertext to link files related to particular locations on Atlantis, for example technical specs on built in systems or items stored there, to color-coded overlays on a map of the city. As you can see, even if we zoom in on one room," he sub-vocalized commands to zoom in on the Jumper bay, "there is too much information available to meaningfully view it all at once. However, if I ask for the weapons overlay," a red frame and four distinct notes remained as all other text disappeared, "we're left with notes on the Jumper defenses, door defenses and airlock options for that room, and a laser firing system outside the Jumper bay exterior hatch."

"Laser firing systems?" John asked, more than a little surprised that there was anything about the Jumper bay he didn't already know.

"They may not be there anymore. They may not be functional. Or that may be part of some larger defense system to deploy from the control chair. These notes are over 10,000 years old. They might suggest places to look, but they can't be considered reliable, and some of these systems could be dangerous through intent or neglect."

"Okay," John said, "but can you refine the view further? Could you look within the weapons view for anything mentioning the Wraith?"

"Yes, of course, why didn't I think of that? You know that most weapons are not that specific. Many weapons might work against the Wraith without mentioning them in their file."

"But if they had something like the Hoffan drug, it would show up."

Carson cut in with, "Remember that we—and I don't mean merely my cloned self and my original but our mission in general—do not have the best record with that sort of targeted research. Do we trust the Ancients to have chosen any more wisely?"

"We'll be careful with whatever we look into." John could have predicted Rodney's next rant before he finished taking a breath.

"The way you were careful with the ARV after I put it off limits…"

*

John waited until Rodney left the labs that night before tracking him down in his room.

"I'm still pretty angry with you about the ARV," Rodney said.

"You can yell at me or rant all you want." John stood just inside the door practically trembling, but not with fear. Rodney mostly faced away from him, facing a computer that was voice activated, so it didn't really matter which way Rodney turned.

"I'm not sure that's enough."

John took a deep breath, knowing he just had to tell Rodney the truth. "You can do whatever you want to me, but don't make me sleep alone tonight."

*

Rodney turned at the flatness he heard in John's voice. No matter how angry he was, he couldn't stand John sounding that hurt.

Finally looking, he saw a man about to fly apart at the seams. Someone who'd had to move mutilated bodies. A commander who'd lost two men that day. Rodney didn't know what to do about it in whatever context they had now, but he couldn't spend seven years on Atlantis and not see it.

"Someone brought back new Dr. Who and put it on the science server."

"Sounds good." John's body practically melted in relief. He moved to the bed and pushed pillows to make it more like a couch.

Rodney was able to carry and set up the laptop himself with minimal discomfort now. He sat beside John and started the show. By the time the Doctor's companions boarded a shape changing android piloted by miniaturized humans, John had fallen asleep and squirmed until he was lying across Rodney's lap.

There was no way to deny the man. Rodney stroked his oversensitive, barely healed fingertips through John's hair and realized he couldn't stay angry and there was no way he'd go back to his supposed life of the mind so long as John wanted him. It was the stupidest feeling Rodney had ever had. He couldn't even decide if it felt good or bad.

*

Rodney woke in the pale glow before dawn to find John fully dressed. He stood at the end of the bed looking down as Rodney lay flat on his back. There was a smell in the room that Rodney associated with hospitals and Jennifer. It made Rodney's skin crawl.

"I thought I'd at least stick around until I got to fuck you," John said. "But you turned out to be so needy and insecure. I think it's time to move on to one of the better offers I've had, someone more like me."

Rodney gasped and woke again, this time to a darker room. A bot, Data Two, hummed and vibrated on his chest. Rodney's heart was racing, his skin damp. Turning his head toward an electronic fan sound on the left, Rodney could just make out Spock Two by his pillow making its comfort noise.

Realizing that he'd really just woken up, Rodney turned to look to his right. A spiky head lifted slightly from the pillow. "Hey, are you all right?" John reached a hand under the covers and brushed Rodney's hip.

"Don't," Rodney said. His muscles tensing as he pictured his flabby body lying flat on his back in the dream as he wondered how John could have wanted him at all.

"Okaaay." John's eyes shone in the dark and Rodney imagined flecks of amber like he used to see in his cat's eyes. "You planning to go back to sleep or get up?"

"I don't think I can sleep anymore." Rodney felt overheated and a bit nauseous. His heart was racing. All he wanted was to get away, to be fully dressed and fully occupied with his work. He mentally ordered the lights to half usual brightness.

John studied his face but didn't try again to touch him. "You want anything, or should I just take off for my morning run?"

"Go ahead and run." Rodney didn't know what to do while he waited for John to dress. His dream was fading, but he still felt like John had accused him of being too needy. He felt insecure about his body, and didn't want to pull back the covers. His bots were still trying to hum and comfort him, and Rodney wondered if that still bothered John. "Bots, go to your chargers."

The bots put themselves away. John finished dressing and came around the bed as if he might kiss Rodney goodbye. Whatever he saw on Rodney's face dissuaded him, as he gave a half smile and said, "See you later, Rodney."

Rodney shivered beneath his blanket. Then he sprang up to shower and dress the instant the door closed behind John.

Once Rodney was safe in his lab with a mug of coffee he could barely stand to lift, he set up the Wraith overlay for his map. As a subset of the weapons overlay, the search area was much more limited. But Rodney couldn't keep the nightmare image of John out of his mind.

Wondering if something might have triggered the bad dream, and if he was painfully honest with himself, trying to prove no part had been real, Rodney asked, "Bots, did John say anything while I was asleep?"

Data Two answered, "The last time John Sheppard spoke while you were present and asleep was twenty-six hours and eleven minutes ago when he said, 'If you can, tell him I got a radio call but I kissed him goodbye.'"

Rodney sputtered, "Did he—He said that to—Oh god, that wasn't this morning that was—" Part of Rodney's mind berated him for acting so emotional while training the bots. Part of him still ached from the horrible dream. But something inside Rodney settled and warmed at the thought of John trying to leave such a message with a cat bot. "Bots, if John asks you to tell me something ever again, tell me as soon as I'm awake and available."

That settled, Rodney felt like he could finally get to work. Knowing the bots had been pre-loaded with the Atlantis equivalent of Google's Knowledge Graph, Rodney asked his bots what other search topics might be relevant for research into Wraith weaponry.

He was surprised when Spock Two answered with, "Hoff virus."

"Had you known of the Hoff virus before Carson brought it up at the senior staff meeting yesterday?" Rodney asked.

"No, request relevant information on Hoff Virus as well as work by Dr. Beckett and Clone Beckett."

"Okay, you may access that." Both bots began to access the data even as Rodney continued speaking. "However, we refer to both as Dr. Beckett. Calling him Clone Beckett would be an insult."

"Request access to updated list of insults."

Rodney didn't know the bots had a list of insults to begin with, but it made sense as part of their language protocols. "Clone wouldn't be an insult to everyone. But the current Dr. Beckett started out not knowing he was a clone. It's probably an insult to him because Dr. Beckett identifies as Dr. Beckett more than as a clone, but I'm not the person to ask about this. Now, beyond what the hypertext already uses, can you suggest any additional topics that might identify files relevant for this Wraith weapons and research overlay?"

"Iratus bug, Hiveship, Hive mind."

"Data Two," Rodney asked the hitherto silent bot, "do you have any further suggestions?"

"Find data unlinked from map."

"Of course." Rodney reminded himself that sarcasm didn't come across to his bots. "What is your best idea on how to do that?"

While Data Two explained a somewhat reasonable adaptation of a web crawler program, Rodney added the three search terms Spock Two had previously suggested for his Wraith overlay.

"Can you offer a list of the next twenty steps to take as you did for my earlier work on this map?" Rodney asked.

"That algorithm only led two steps further. You have taken the two additional steps now."

Rodney wondered if Miko didn't pursue her research further or if she'd erased her trail. Either way, he had better avenues to explore at the moment for the Wraith weapons overlay.

*

John had hoped Rodney would wake up relaxed and cuddly as he the first time John spent the night. He'd imagined easy morning sex in bed or in the shower. But Rodney had woken from what must have been a bad dream, something that made him pull away from John's touch. Given John's dreams of falling body parts and digging through corpses, he was hardly in a position to ask.

When John cornered Rodney in the lab to study the weapon's overlay on the new map, he'd been pleased that Rodney had made the Wraith overlay John had asked for. But Rodney had hurried John away and refused to meet him for lunch.

So John took what seemed the logical next step. He assigned his team a mission, requesting Rodney for his scientific expertise, to check out the most promising unexplored sites within Atlantis.

Ronon pulled his blaster as they entered the unused tower.

"Put that away. Can you get it through that over-insulated head of yours that we're looking for weapons to use on Wraith and not the Wraith themselves?" Rodney grumbled from the back of the group.

Ronon only grunted and kept his blaster in hand.

"It cannot hurt to be prepared," Teyla said.

"What are you, a Pegasus Girl Guide?" Rodney muttered.

"What is a Girl Guide?"

John could tell from Teyla's innocent tone that she was trying to break Rodney out of the tense silence that must have bothered her as well.

Rodney took the bait easily. "Girl Guides is an organization that takes school aged girls camping and makes them sell cookies. Their motto is 'be prepared' just like the Boy Scouts. But from what I've seen, the Girl Guides are usually more prepared. The bullies at my high school wouldn't target any of the Girl Guides after they tied the head of the football team to a tree for putting his hands where one of their members didn't want them."

"I see the value in such training, but what does this training have to do with cookies?"

John smiled at the old team interaction as Rodney sputtered on about the addictive nature of chocolate mint cookies. John refrained from offering his own explanations about American Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and cookies. He didn't even accidentally on purpose bump into Rodney's shoulder. Instead, he let himself drift on the sound of Rodney voice until they reached the room targeted on their map.

"Okay, campers, time to prepare for whatever the Ancients may have left in a weapons lab."

John and Ronon made a first pass, with John being very careful not to touch or even think at anything.

Rodney had gone silent again and didn't even lodge a token protest at being left in the hall with Teyla standing between him and the door. He'd probably be unimpressed once they let him in. There was a podium-style main terminal with a wall display in front of it. One long side of the room had tables, all currently empty. Across from them stood a row of vertical columns devoid of bubbles, lights, or other decorations. There were no human-sized pods or smaller canisters. John thought cylindrical devices in labs most often led to trouble, so he didn't mind that omission. But the straight lines and lack of stained glass or decoration did make the room a little plain by Atlantis standards.

"Clear. Ready for McKay to tell us what's safe to touch."

John expected a sarcastic reply, but Rodney walked directly to the main terminal and unloaded his bots, some tools, and his laptop. At least his hands seemed to be improving. While he was still mostly using the speech recognition device, Rodney had no problem connecting the Earth laptop's wires to the Ancient system. Then he slowly powered the old system up.

For a long time no sounds came from the scientist other than occasional instructions to his laptop or the bots. When the bots handed Rodney tools as he worked under the console, John's gut tightened at the loss of a job he'd never realized he wanted. But he couldn't really be jealous of the bots. They seemed to reassure Rodney the way a pet would, a simple reliable presence. Not that they were simple, and it would help if they had an obvious speaker rather that sounds coming from somewhere in their segmented bodies. Still, if they had personality and comforted Rodney, that was enough to make them cats and not bugs in John's mind.

Then Rodney was standing again and John wandered to where he could see the display. It seemed that Rodney had greatly improved his mental command of Ancient technology in the last week. He flicked through screens full of line graphs and numbers without touching anything.

"Bots, remember these settings," he said at one point.

Then minutes later on what seemed to be a completely different page he asked, "Bots, any change in settings?"

"No change. Three fewer settings listed," one of the bots answered. John looked for a scuff by the last joint and knew the answering bot was Spock Two.

"Data Two, list steps to check other three settings," Rodney said.

"Go back two screens. Enlarge advanced options menu from lower right. See if the three settings are offered there. If they are not—"

"That's enough."

John watched as Rodney adjusted the advanced options on the screen without any visible sign that he was doing anything. Then the scientist flicked through several more screens without explanation. Through it all, John tried to be quiet and patient, not sure how much of Rodney's silence was moodiness verses working with speech activated machines.

Finally Rodney said, "This room controls force-field barriers that can be switched on in all the doorways in Atlantis to prevent Wraith from passing through. I'm not sure if it was ever used. The barriers might also keep out insects if we ever land the city someplace where that's a problem, since this project seems to have spun off from a simpler gadget used to repel bugs."

"Was the bug zapper portable?" John asked.

"I don't know. That file is mentioned and not linked. If you consider it important, I could ask an entomologist to look for it." Rodney's answer was flat, and he didn't glance John's way or say anything scathing about entomologists. After the way Rodney had relaxed talking to Ronon and Teyla earlier, it seemed Rodney's problem was specific to John. However, John wasn't sure if the scientist was still mad about him using the ARV and it should be addressed now as military commander or if Rodney was struggling to keep things professional despite their changing relationship. John decided he'd wait and talk to Rodney later, just in case it was the latter.

"Could make a Wraith shield," Ronon said.

Rodney had no problem meeting Ronon's gaze before rolling his eyes. "Of course, can't imagine why the Ancients didn't think of that and just upgrade their bug zappers."

"Have you not commented many times on oversights in the Ancients' work that seemed illogical to you?" Teyla asked.

"Hey, if they want me to build a better bug zapper, I'll build a better bug zapper. Are we done here?"

"Are the barriers for the doors operational now?" John asked.

"They claim to be fully operational but not turned on. The fact they weren't part of the default programs like scanners or quarantine protocols makes me suspicious though."

"High power consumption?" John asked.

"Not according to the specs." Rodney flipped through screens as he answered.

"Are there further tests you could perform here?"

"Not without activating the system."

"Can you just activate the barrier in this doorway?" He pointed to the room's only door.

Screens flipped. "I could."

"Let's fire it up and see." John smiled as he said it, eager to move on to slightly more active explorations of this device or the next on his list.

*

Rodney's muscles were tense with stress he normally didn't feel around his team, at least not without local chieftains waving knives in his face or Ancient artifacts threatening to explode around them. He rolled his shoulders but whenever John spoke, Rodney pictured the Colonel standing at the end of the bed, criticizing Rodney for being too needy and insecure. He kept telling himself it had been a dream. It was time to get his brain in gear and act like the arrogant genius he needed to be with his team. But being that person was tiring. He'd spent so much time alone lately that he was out of practice at being around people.

The cat bots handing him tools and answering simple questions helped. They gave him something to hide behind, allies he could trust. Except, in the past he'd grown used to trusting his team.

John asked, "Are there further tests you could perform here?" and "Can you just activate the barrier in this doorway?"

Rodney worked on autopilot. He knew it wasn't John from his dream, but he still couldn't stand to look uncertain. Even when he remembered John's kind words and kiss, it made Rodney unsure of how to react in front of others. He answered simply and went ahead with his work. "Okay, this door is set."

"How do we test it?" John asked.

Rodney had no idea how to test it or why they were even doing this. He couldn't find a flip, arrogant answer, but he certainly wouldn't say he didn't know. "We can start with whatever Wraith bits Beckett kept."

He headed out the door and Ronon turned to walk through almost beside him. John and Teyla were a step behind. Rodney heard a "Ummph" and two loud thumps that made him whirl around.

John and Teyla were out cold on the floor. They'd fallen just inside the doorway. He hadn't seen it happen, but his mind knew the sound. Having heard enough unconscious bodies hit the ground, he knew they'd hit without catching themselves. Teyla's arms bent up and out, as if in surprise. John's head bent too far back, exposing his neck. He'd probably have a concussion at least. So long as he wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead.

Rodney leapt for the door only to have a tree-like arm slam across his ribs. "What?" he shouted. He kicked and scratched, forgetting all his supposed training.

Ronon said, "Stay. Call help." The big man pressed Rodney to the far side of the hallway and didn't let go until Rodney stopped struggling. With a glare worthy of his old self, Rodney hit the radio on his ear hard enough to hurt his still tender fingers. "Medical team to tower seventeen. Fifth floor. Sheppard and Teyla unconscious after a fall." As he spoke he watched Ronon carefully reach a finger and then his hand through the doorway before passing through to kneel by their fallen teammates.

"Both breathing," Ronon said.

Rodney stepped back into the room before Ronon could warn him off. Without even reaching the console he knew how stupid he'd been. "I have to shut this off before the medical team tries to take them out of here. They're probably the only two people in the city who can't pass through that door right now, and who knows what sort of shock it had calibrated for full Wraith. We can't risk it again." He struggled mentally to undo the barrier he'd enabled just minutes before. Every screen he brought up insisted the barrier could not be overridden so long at the Wraith threat remained present. All Wraith must be removed or terminated.

Rodney searched advanced settings. He frantically typed a work around into his laptop, ignoring the pain that shot through his fingers with his frantic keystrokes. He checked what would happen if they shut down the console or blasted the door, but there were failsafes to keep the barrier active even in war.

Carson rushed in with a medical team. Ronon jumped to his feet ready to catch anyone zapped by the door, but none of the rescuers knew it was anything but an open door.

Carson and an orderly finished a quick triage and said, "Immobilize their necks and load them onto gurneys. We'll need the infirmary's full body scanner to check them over."

"No!" Rodney shouted and all eyes turned to him. "They can't pass through that door until I turn the Wraith barrier off. I don't know what percentage of Teyla's DNA is Wraith and whether Sheppard was zapped for being bitten by an Iratus bug or the retrovirus that almost turned him into one." Carson winced, but Rodney was back to no holds barred, speaking where his mind raced. "But the barrier won't let me shut it down because it still sees them as threats."

"I cannae believe you're letting that stop you," Carson said in his calmest Scottish doctor voice.

"I'm trying," Rodney shouted as he frantically skipped through screens. "Bots, steps to shut off the Wraith barrier."

"Kill threats," Spock Two said.

"Not an acceptable solution," Rodney fumed. "Data Two, do you have a better idea?"

"Reclassify as not threats."

"How?"

"Think or type program."

Rodney heard something about John's pulse dropping and knew he didn't have time to type any such thing. He hadn't tried any serious programming since his mental control of Ancient tech had improved after his injury. Not having time to search existing Ancient spaghetti code, he pictured a logic drawing of the algorithm he'd program in regardless of computer language. A new screen popped up saying program modifications were not allowed while threat was present.

Somehow Rodney resisted pounding his head or his hands against the console. He needed to think of a different algorithm. He needed to approach the problem from a higher level that wouldn't be locked out during a crisis.

Using his laptop and aggravating his fingers to maintain privacy, he sent an encrypted plea to Miko. "Urgent. Need to deactivate a Wraith barrier in tower seventeen or convince system that Sheppard and Teyla are not Wraith and not threats. Do anything you can. I won't ask how."

Rodney kept searching mentally as he sent the message and after. He had no idea if Miko's hacking or whatever else she knew could help.

"Adjust his neck," he heard Beckett mutter from the floor beside John, "breathing is highest priority now."

Rodney didn't know how he'd live with himself if his incompetence damaged John. But he pushed the thought aside as he tried to convince the system its detection of a Wraith threat was a sensor error. He'd made his way through to a sensor calibration diagram when a new screen popped up declaring the threat resolved. Then another screen ordered the barrier shut down, and a confirmation appeared that it was deactivated.

"Okay," Rodney panted as if he'd been chased through the gate, again. "The system says the barrier is deactivated. There's really no way to test it except to take one of them through."

"Teyla first," Beckett ordered. Rodney had never been so glad to not be in charge anymore.

As soon as Teyla and John passed through without incident, Rodney let himself sink to the floor. He sat with his head between his knees and told himself he couldn't have a panic attack now, because he didn't want to call any medical personnel away from his teammates.

When his eyes re-focused on a patch of floor farther away than his own feet, he saw Ronon's leather boots.

Rodney lifted his head to where Ronon kept watch far above him. Ronon nodded and reached out a hand.

After a moment, Rodney reached up and let himself be pulled up by his wrist. He packed up his bots and the rest of his supplies with shaking, stinging hands. It was okay. He just needed to get to the infirmary. He moved his feet and passed through the treacherous door once again with Ronon basically at his side.

Ronon stayed beside him when they reached the infirmary. The staff wouldn't let them near the scanner area where John and Teyla were. They ended up in visitor chairs closer to Stackhouse and Markham who both looked half dead. That didn't help Rodney stay calm.

Ronon's hand dropped onto Rodney's shoulder. The genius startled but didn't pull away. He found the trust he'd known with his team before they flew Atlantis to Earth, before he'd been involved with or rearranged himself to please Jennifer. Rodney had trusted Ronon, and despite Ronon's own interest in Jennifer, he'd never said anything against Rodney. Even after Rodney ignored his team for most of three years, Ronon watched out for him when their teammates went down and when they were taken away to the infirmary.

"Thanks," Rodney managed to say.

Ronon only grunted, but he kept his hand on Rodney's shoulder.

*

John woke up in the big scanner. Without moving he could see the bent brown pole that held a rectangular hood with a bar of green light that slid from one end to the other. He was pretty sure that only Atlantis had a scanner like that. If he moved they'd make him redo the scan. So John lay still, trying to remember what had landed him in the infirmary this time.

He remembered his team heading to the infirmary to see if Beckett had any Wraith tissue to test the doorway barrier. John hadn't even made it through the doorway. Something like a bomb went off. Now he ached and tingled all over—like waking up after some super-charged Wraith stunner had fried his nervous system and dropped him to the ground.

But he was in the Atlantis infirmary. It seemed unlikely that a Wraith had stunned him as he walked out of the lab where they'd activated a Wraith barrier. So something had gone wrong and the barrier had zapped him.

Perhaps it said too much about the last seven years of John's life, but his whole body relaxed after concluding he'd only been hurt by a lab accident and was now safe in the Ancient medical scanner. He wondered if anyone else had been hurt and remembered Rodney and Ronon walking out safely in front of him.

When the moving bar above him stopped and the green light turned off, John asked, "Is Teyla okay?"

"Aye, lad, she's fine." The Scottishness of the wording suggested Dr. Beckett had been more worried that he let on. "Just stunned as you were and strained her wrist in the fall. You have a minor concussion, but nothing lasting."

John sat up, determined to ignore the remaining pins and needles in his arms and legs. "So I can go now?"

Carson shook his head gently as if knowing his answer was expected, "You'll stay here in bed where I can keep an eye on you at least through dinner."

"Have I ever had a problem after a concussion?" John asked.

"Not on my watch, because I know the only way to make you rest and recover is to keep you here." Carson reached out to take John's arm. "I'll walk you to a bed."

John pretended he didn't need the help and called out when he saw Ronon and Rodney standing by Teyla's bed as Teyla smiled and nodded at whatever they were discussing. "Aww, shucks, you waited."

Rodney spun around, mouth open for an outraged reply. Then he just shut down. He shut his mouth and his expression went flat. He didn't say a word.

"Good to see you recovered," said Teyla.

"Guess the good doctor's not letting you out either." John seated himself on the bed next to Teyla. Stackhouse and Markham were only two beds further down and looked awake and curious. "Hey, men, sorry to crash your party."

"No problem, sir," Markham said.

John turned and raised the head off his bed so he could stay mostly sitting up. Rodney had closed his mouth, but was creeping toward the ends of the beds. "So Rodney, I'm guessing you're eager to tell us how you already fixed whatever went wrong."

He'd meant it as sort of salve to the scientist's pride, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Rodney wouldn't meet his eyes as he reported. "It took a while to shut the device down. It kept insisting you and Teyla were Wraith and therefore a threat was still present."

"But you and Ronon walked—Oh, I guess my unsavory past is catching up with me."

Rodney waved his hands twice through the air and turned to leave. "I should be going back to—"

Ronon's arm shot out in front of Rodney's chest like the boom gate at a tollbooth. "Not an acceptable solution."

"What?" Rodney and John said in unison.

That was not a phrase anyone expected to hear Ronon say. It sounded like something Rodney would say to… "Did you tell your bots that while I was unconscious?" John asked.

"I…Spock Two said…They have no sense of…What am I supposed to say?"

In that moment Rodney sounded like a robot John remembered from Lost in Space, except then he would have ended with "Does not compute." John wondered how much of Rodney's tension all day had been a matter of conflicting instructions and the genius not trusting himself in social situations. "C'mere." John held out his hand.

Rodney looked at the hand. Then he looked pointedly toward the sergeants in the beds farther down.

"Are you seriously worried what people will think if you hold my hand?"

That at least encouraged Rodney to move closer, even if his whisper was still loud enough to be heard half a room away. "It's only been a few days, and you may not be thinking clearly about the whole American military and the way rumors spread and—"

John rolled his eyes and interrupted, "Markham, Stackhouse, either of you have a problem with McKay holding my hand?"

"No, sir," both answered, though Stackhouse still didn't sound too strong.

John held his hand out to Rodney again. "We can discuss PDAs or whatever you want, but I never had any intention of hiding from anyone."

Rodney stepped forward and took the offered hand, but he didn't look happy. John drew him in gently, careful of the still healing hand and his still forming relationship. He could whisper quietly enough that no one but Rodney, and possible Ronon who had elephantine hearing, could listen. "Is there something I should know?"

*

Rodney did not know what to do with the crazy flyboy holding his hand and basically outing himself and their relationship to the entire city. There were a million things John should know, and half of them Rodney was never going to say. He'd been a second away from running off to his lab and never discussing any of it again. But John was staring at him with big hazel eyes and his expression was so soft, as if Rodney was a skittish cat that might flee behind a sofa.

"I can't do this. I screwed up today. I should have argued, should have checked more parameters. I didn't know about the failsafe. What if we couldn't get you out? What if the barrier had been lethal to you because it was calibrated for actual Wraith?"

Rodney had started out quiet but grew louder as he talked. John finally cut him off before Rodney's insecurities echoed down the hall. "I'm fine, Rodney. We all make mistakes. There have been other days when one or both of us was off our game." John's grip on Rodney's barely recovered hand suddenly loosened, though he didn't let go. "The night you burned yourself in the ARV, you would have called me if we'd been together then. Wouldn't you have?"

"Maybe. And what if you'd gone in to test it while I watched the external monitor?" Rodney knew he was right. He knew it was better for everyone if he just focused on his work. "It's better if I only hurt myself. And without distractions, I can do what I'm best at, what's best for Atlantis. Face it, there's a certain range of thinking and problem solving at which I'm clearly superior. Nothing involving people is on that list. You should never have started this with me. At some point you'll get pissed at me, and it will be messy. Meanwhile, Atlantis will miss out on some portion of the discoveries I could have made. Not only could you get hurt again, people under your command could, too."

Rodney thought he'd made a logical case. The "leave no man behind" military commander couldn't possibly refute that argument. Rodney tried to pull away, but John used their barely clasped hands to reel him in until they were practically nose to nose.

"Don't you get it, Rodney?" John whispered so quietly no one but the two of them could possibly hear. "I love you. I've loved you for a long time, Rodney."

It was a non-sequitur. Rodney had made a perfectly reasonable, logical argument, and John had derailed it. Beyond that, the look on his face made Rodney want to say it back, which made no sense. Love wasn't something he could understand anymore, and he doubted anyone could actually love him. "This is exactly what I was talking about. I didn't see that coming. I don't know how to react. I'm lousy at this stuff. You can do much better. And I'm better suited to doing something else."

Even Rodney knew he was getting loud again. He expected John to get loud too. In any rational situation, John should be sincerely upset with him by now. Instead, the idiot still looked all soft and understanding.

When John didn't shout, Rodney called out, "Carson, you need to check on this concussion. The Colonel here isn't making sense."

Rodney had just shouted to the infirmary at large, but Carson instantly appeared from a side room across the way. He strode across the floor with solid steps that nonetheless made almost no noise. Taking the opposite side of the bed from Rodney he asked, "Any nausea or ringing in your ears, John?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm just arguing against Rodney's logic, so he thinks I'm brain damaged."

Carson's forehead wrinkled. "I see. What did you say that he found illogical?"

"I told the man I'm _dating_ ," and John emphasized the word and didn't keep it all that quiet, "that I love him and wasn't going to dump him because he made a mistake."

Carson paused and then raised his eyebrows before turning to Rodney. "Are you objecting to his sentiment or are you saying the two of you aren't dating and he's delusional?"

Rodney glared at John who only smirked in return. "Well, we've never actually labeled it as dating. We've never talked about any of this in a public place before."

"He won't let me leave," John protested, pointing a finger at the doctor.

Carson nodded and reached a hand to pat Rodney's shoulder. "You'd be surprised at some of the discussions doctors overhear couples having in any infirmary, when neither of them is on staff that is." He smiled at Rodney. "Don't worry. You'll get used to it. And congratulations."

Carson walked over to check on Teyla, and John smiled stupidly up at Rodney.

"I still have no idea what I'm supposed to say or do."

"Just be yourself. It's all good."

"I still think you're brain damaged."

"Nothing new about that."

#

Rodney didn't stay with John in the infirmary, and Ronon left when Teyla was released. Instead, John spent the afternoon watching Stackhouse suffer phantom pains in legs he still couldn't feel. He was reassured to see Markham holding Stackhouse's hand and talking him through the pain. Perhaps the scene he'd made with Rodney had some benefits. Though when John was released from the infirmary, it seemed Rodney was hiding from him again.

After an hour of failing to find his scientist, John ate dinner with Ronon and Teyla instead. Then John went to the control room to check for any isolated life signs that might be his scientist.

He was surprised to find someone working alone in tower eighteen, which hadn't been cleared for use. No one should be there without a security escort, so John headed out to offer his services. He finally found Rodney in a top floor room with giant skylights and large glass-like specimen boxes. The floor of the room was dim as the setting sun angled through the skylights, and Rodney had one of the bots shining a light on something that looked like a shriveled three foot long gourd in a display case on the floor.

"Don't touch anything," was Rodney's greeting.

"Yes, yes. Remember the rules about taking a security escort to areas of the city that haven't been inspected and cleared yet?"

"I'm inspecting. And I had my bots."

"So if you found a Wraith just coming out of hibernation, your bots would shoot it for you?"

"No, I'd lock it in a room and call security. And it's not like you followed the safety protocols I set up for the ARV."

"Only because you were clearly using it again, so I figured it was fixed."

"I was only sleeping there, not activating the viewer."

John's jaw clenched as he took a moment to process that. "You really never saw us together in those alternate realities?"

"Only if you were the shadow in the one image that included someone else."

"So why were you and I going at it in every scene I saw?"

"Going at it? You spied on our alternate selves like watching porn?" Rodney blushed from his cheeks to his collar.

"Jealous?" John took a step closer to Rodney. "It was pretty hot."

"Pervert." Rodney's face showed he was imagining scenes of them together. John stroked a finger from his ear to his lips. The scientist sputtered, "You know, it targets the aspects you're looking for."

"I didn't know. What would happen if we went and watched together?"

"We'd probably see me wanting to work and you wanting sex. Seriously, do you download porn on your work computer?"

"My work computer is Ancient." John waited for Rodney to huff at the old joke. "If I'd brought any porn, it would have to play on Earth technology."

"You didn't bring any porn?" Rodney asked, eyes wide like he couldn't believe that.

"I'm the military commander. I'm gay. Until a week ago, that was sort of a problem for my employers." He didn't bother to mention that he couldn't keep Rodney out of his mind when he jerked off in the shower, even back when it looked like Rodney would marry Keller.

"What about 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell?'"

"Not really the point when I'm the base commander, but I would never have asked you to keep something like this secret."

"I've kept secrets all my life." John wondered if Rodney knew how his face fell when he said that.

"I don't want it to be like that for us." John stepped forward to where they could feel each other's body heat.

Rodney stepped back and started waving his arms. "See, that's just one way this is never going to work. You think because I rant all the time that I have no brain to mouth filter, but most of what goes on in my mind, no one ever hears. "

"I'd like to."

*

The way John said it sounded like he was talking about other things. Rodney's body responded to the implications but his mind swirled with secrets he wanted to keep—needed to keep— everything from his own insecurities to what he suspected about Atlantis. As usual, he hid behind his work and pretended not to have thought about the rest. "No you wouldn't. Most of it wouldn't even make sense to you. In small doses you might find me amusing, but in the long run, you'd be bored by most of what I care about."

"The long run?" John stepped forward again, and Rodney found himself pressed against a wall. "For the last seven years, I've listened more to you than to anyone else. I don't think what you're worried about is me getting bored with your mind or what you talk about."

"Fine, if you know so much, what do you think the problem is?"

"No idea. But you can tell me what you want, or I can ask others for advice. Don't just quit on me because it might not work out. I know you well enough to know you're not a quitter."

"I totally am. I give up on people all the time. It's work that I can't quit, because sometimes I might be the only one who can do it."

"And what if you're the only one who does it for me?" John shifted his hips and brushed their cocks together. Rodney was sure his IQ dropped fifty points.

"Not now. Not in a room full of hybrid Wraith tech."

"What?" John stepped back and looked around at all the specimen boxes with their biotech prototypes. "I wondered why you hadn't sent a botanist to look at gourds."

"I didn't know what I'd find until I came here. This part of the map is short on data."

"Then what makes you say they're Wraith tech?"

Rodney used the extra space he'd been given by John's surprised step back to retrieve his laptop with scanner data. "Hybrid Wraith tech. I took energy readings with a handheld scanner and the patterns and frequency distributions show both Ancient and Wraith characteristics."

"So what does it do?"

"I told you, there's no data for this as far as I could find when searching locations for my map. Someone either hid it or lost it. For now it's just a power source in a nutshell."

"Were you going to pry it open without telling anyone?"

"No!" What did John think he was, suicidal? The way John relaxed at his protest, that might not be too far from the mark. "I wanted to put it in the large scanner in the infirmary, but I don't have enough data on safety concerns. So I'd started searching the medical overlay for any other labs that might have a large scanner."

"Cool." John shifted to lean against the wall, just like this was any other conversation over the years. Now it was Rodney who couldn't keep his mind on work as John slouched bonelessly where he'd pressed up against Rodney moments before. It took Rodney longer than it should to process John's next request. "Maybe you can find something to help Stackhouse. Something that deals with paralysis or spinal injuries."

"What? He's paralyzed? But he was just joking with you in the infirmary."

"He's military, Rodney. Right now, he's hoping it's temporary or his career and his time on Atlantis is over."

Rodney didn't know what to say except, "I should go back to my lab. Both searches will be faster from my terminal there."

"What about sleep?"

"No time."

"I thought it didn't take time with the way you use the ARV."

"You're trying to trick me into an alternate reality peepshow."

"Only if you say it's safe. I'd never pressure you into unsafe sex."

"You'd really have sex in an Ancient device?"

"Yes, Rodney. We already live, eat, sleep, and have sex in an Ancient device, at least on the days when we're lucky enough." John shoved his hands deep in his pants pockets as he pushed his hips out, and the image was almost pornographic.

"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this."

John immediately moved away from the wall and packed up Rodney's tools, bots, and laptop.

#

John climbed into the ARV with Rodney and closed the hatch behind them. For a moment they faced each other, heads sharing the same pillow, noses almost touching.

"So it's okay if I turn it on."

"You may not like what we see." Rodney's voice was sarcastic, but his face showed uncertainty.

"Because it will be biased by both of our intents?"

"It should be."

"Then a little preparation seems to be in order." John shifted his head to kiss Rodney even as he unzipped the scientist's jacket. He had him half naked with his pupils wide and nipples hard before he heard any response.

"Are you trying to keep our clothes clean or make sure we're only thinking about sex?"

"Both." John pulled Rodney's pants away and breathed warm wet air on his cock as he continued to strip the man. Then he made as much of a show of removing his own clothes as he could in the cramped space.

Rodney's cock was hard and leaking by the time John activated the ARV. The first set of pictures to pop up were definitely pornographic. All three showed John driving Rodney out of his mind. One side showed John pushing into that gorgeous ass. The ceiling showed John on his knees sucking, and the other side showed Rodney bent over a desk as John held his cheeks open and rimmed him. John had never actually tried that with anyone, but the way Rodney's eyes were rolled back in that image made John want to.

Suddenly all three images switched to vague shapes in dark rooms. John could make out two shapes and guess from the rhythm and proximity that they were still watching sex scenes. But it was a lot less fun, especially since the views lacked sound.

John crawled on top of Rodney and brushed their skin together. Their cocks couldn't help but brush skin with how hard they both were. "Don't be shy, Rodney. I like seeing us together. I can't get enough of your body. Seeing you squirm. Seeing your pupils blown or your eyes rolled back. I want us both to see that, and I want to make you feel it."

"Maybe your desires can subtly select for the Rodneys that are in better shape, but that won't change how I look in all that light."

No one who was fully hard should be able to feel that self-conscious. "Let me convince you how much I like your body just the way it is." John hoped that once Rodney felt it, he'd want enough light to appreciate both the images and the reality.

John set himself to worshipping Rodney's body. He started with the bristles on his jaw and transitioned to the delicate skin along his neck and collar bone. "You have no idea how many times I watched you talk and wanted to do this. And now we have all the time in the world."

Rodney's hips thrust up at the mention of taking a long time. John loved the feeling but didn't let it distract him. He shifted to support himself on just one side but still tangle a leg with Rodney's as he used one hand and his mouth to trace every contour on Rodney's chest and arms. He loved Rodney's nipples, always standing proud and as sensitive as he'd known they'd be. But he also loved the way Rodney shivered at soft stokes along his sides or his inner arms. And when John sucked carefully on the still healing fingers, Rodney tried to rut against his leg in earnest.

"I know how hot you must look right now. I can see in my mind how your abs and ass must bunch up with each thrust. I've seen how a flush can spread down your neck. I bet you're flushed and straining right now. I bet all the Rodneys in all the pictures around us are desperate with want."

Instead of bringing out images they could actually see, that speech got John rolled onto his back. Rodney still rocked his cock beside John's. He also pushed his tongue into John's mouth in a wet and deeply dirty kiss. Then the scientist's fingertips were tracing every inch of John's skin, as if he was reading brail. The only firm touch was when Rodney pinched John's nipples between two knuckles, with the backs of his hands against John's skin. After the overwhelming kiss and all the teasing touch, John arched and practically screamed. Suddenly he was surrounded by images of himself, mouth open in silent screams of ecstasy all around them. In one Rodney was fucking him while kissing messily. In the other two Rodney was using his hands and rubbing their bodies together. John's eyes flicked around him, not wanting to miss anything, even as his eyelids slid down with orgasm growing closer

"Please," John panted, "both of us together, sixty-nine."

Rodney made a sound that was half roar and half hum. In a moment he had flipped around and laid his head on John's thigh. Tongue already tasting his prize.

John had to distract himself with images of ice and snow to hold off while he placed his head on Rodney's thigh and used a hand around the base to position Rodney's cock.

The images shifted again, and the two that John could see from his new position were both of sixty-nining. The one right in front of him seemed to be happening in his old room at the Ancient Antarctic outpost. The one above him was hot and heavy as far as John could tell. Maybe his equivalent in that universe was also thinking of something cold in order to last a little longer with a clever warm tongue on his cock. And oh, was Rodney's tongue clever. John set his mind to swirling and sucking. He'd use any trick he could think of to bring Rodney over the edge with him.

All too soon it happened. He could feel Rodney's balls pulling tight beneath his hand even as he saw the pace pick up in the Antarctic view in front of him. He covered his teeth with his lips to make sure he wouldn't lose control as Rodney started to spurt into his mouth and John followed within a moment.

As they fell back spent, John had just enough presence of mind to stop the images from the machine. The ARV was dark except for the small light Rodney kept there. John drifted into sleep with his head still on Rodney's thigh and Rodney's heavy and warm on his.

#

John didn't know how long they'd slept in the ARV, but he'd woken up more rested than he'd felt in years. Conveniently, the mess still had some dinner left, so he sat with Rodney and ate the same food he'd eaten just a couple hours before, as far as anyone on the kitchen staff would know.

Then he followed Rodney to his semi-private desk in his favorite lab and watched his genius talk to his bots and laptop and think at his Ancient console. He learned that the bots sounded almost as clever as some of Rodney's minions by this point. The speech recognition computer could understand when Rodney cursed in French. And the medical map overlay included over twenty types of biohazard symbols, with at least a few in almost every room. A couple hours in John said, "I'm never going to get bored of listening to you."

Rodney rolled his eyes and said, "Working." But John could see the faint lines by his eyes lifting up even if Rodney managed not to smile.

After another twenty minutes of Rodney muttering about, "Ancients who needed bots to find their socks because their closets must have held a precarious heap of clothes given what their code and database looked like," Spock Two interrupted with an R2D2 burble that Rodney must have suggested.

"Yes?" Rodney asked.

"Potential data of interest located. Device marked as 'diagnostic suite' in tower twenty-two lists a setting for 'scan and display.'"

In the literal blink of an eye, the map view on the Ancient console zoomed in on the relevant room. It listed at least twenty other devices and then close to twenty of the biohazard warnings. Rodney switched the screen to his laptop and packed that up with his tools. The bots loaded themselves into the bag. Without a word Rodney hurried out of the lab, and John followed, thinking he was less well trained than the bots.

They ended up at the infirmary, finding Carson at a microscope in his lab area. Rodney was talking before the doctor even looked up. "If you have a diagnostic you run on the large scanner here, we could simply take a copy of that. But if you'd like to join us, we may have found another diagnostic suite with several other devices in the same room."

"What are you on about, Rodney. And shouldn't John be resting following his concussion?"

"I napped until I couldn't sleep anymore," John said truthfully. "But you remember what happened the last time Rodney checked out a new device alone at night."

"Those circumstances were completely different. I'll have you know…" As Rodney continued his rant about his higher than average caution and the unappreciated importance of all his work, Carson gathered a laptop, a tablet, and several other gadgets into a bag. Then he picked up a pre-packed red first aid kit and said. "Lead on, McKay. I was officially off duty at ten so the infirmary can do without me for a while."

When they exited the nearest functional transporter to tower twenty-two, Beckett started a more personal conversation. "While we're out here, I wanted to express how happy I am for the two of you. Am I correct in assuming the change in your relationship had to do with the repeal of the American regulations?"

John answered, "Yes."

At the same time Rodney answered, "Evidently, although I find his reasoning nearly incomprehensible and am greatly annoyed that the Americans have such influence over my private life when I chose not to give up my Canadian citizenship no matter how many times they asked or tried to insist."

"Well," Beckett cut in, "I just wanted to say that I'm happy to answer questions of any kind. As your doctor I have some idea of what you each have and have not been doing for the past several years. Sometimes even what people think they know leaves them uncertain about some aspects. I hope neither of you would ever be embarrassed to come to me with any concern, medical or personal. I am aware that neither of you has taken to the mental health staff since we lost dear Kate, and you know anything you discuss with me is strictly confidential."

"Did you just offer yourself as sex educator and relationship counselor?" Rodney sputtered. "I can't believe we're having this conversation. I let you come with us to explore a lab that could have all sorts of advanced medical equipment, and what? You're going to teach us the importance of condoms and remembering our anniversary?"

"Rodney," John hit him with a carefully placed elbow, "he's being a good friend." He turned to Carson. "If I ever feel like discussing any of that stuff, you'll be at the top of my list."

Carson nodded. "I know you have no intention of it now. Just so you know you're always welcome."

At that point they reached the new lab and John made both Rodney and Carson stay in the hall as he checked the room.

*

[Cat bot carrier on ground. Implied permission to roll out.]

Data Two: "Dr. Beckett." [Beckett turns head to see bots. Implied consent to communicate.] "Does your willingness to answer questions of any kind extend to Data Two and Spock Two?"

Dr. Beckett: [Beckett turns head to McKay. McKay nods. Implied consent.] "Within reason," [Uncertain parameters.] "I'd be happy to answer your questions."

Data Two: "As a clone, does your progenitor's social standing transfer to you?"

Dr. Beckett: [Longer pause than average. Implied uncertainty or deception.] "As far as most people in Atlantis are concerned, I would say yes. There was a transition period while people adjusted to the idea of me being a clone. There were security concerns about how I was made and what I did before being brought to Atlantis. But now, most people who were friends, patients, or otherwise associated with my progenitor treat me about the same. Is that what you wanted to know?"

Data Two: "That is sufficient."

Spock Two: "Do you identify as Scottish because your progenitor did?"

Dr. Beckett: "Indeed, I do."

Spock Two: "Do you identify as a doctor, a Lantean, and Tau'ri because your progenitor did?"

Dr. Beckett: "I do."

Spock Two: "Would you identify me as Canadian, a scientist, a Lantean, and Tau'ri because my intellect is based on Dr. McKay?"

Dr. Beckett: [Longer pause than average. Implied uncertainty or deception.] "Identity is a complicated issue for humans. There are concerns about certain humans having the right to claim a certain identity, but a large part of how others see us is based on how we self-identify. If I no longer saw myself as Scottish after finding out I was a clone, and especially if my accent and phrasing became less Scottish as a result, then other people would be less likely to see me as Scottish. Does that make sense to you?"

Spock Two: "Processing."

Data Two: "If you are Dr. McKay's doctor, are you also our doctor?"

Dr. Beckett: "You do understand that I'm a medical doctor, and most of what I know involves the human body." [Rise in tone. Implied question despite grammar of sentence.] "Rodney knows much more about how to care for and repair your robot bodies."

Data Two: "Dr. McKay knows more engineering and programming. It is logical he or others with that knowledge would repair our bodies, or we may in some situations repair each other. When we asked Dr. McKay to let us access data on the Hoff virus and Clone Beckett, he said it would be an insult to refer to you as Clone Beckett. He also said he was not the person to ask about such issues. You offered to answer his questions of any kind and made specific reference to personal or mental health issues. Would you also answer such question for Data Two and Spock Two?"

Dr. Beckett: [Dr. Beckett turns head to Dr. McKay's previous position then toward room Dr. McKay is now inside.] "I am happy to try to answer your questions, but I will need to ask McKay about certain issues. You say your intellect is based on Dr. McKay, and I understand how that might be similar to my situation as a clone. But there are other ways of seeing your relationship to McKay that may affect how he and others respond to you. Some may view you as machines, as employees working for McKay, or as children. It may take time for people to understand how they feel about you, how you identify yourselves, and how they can relate to that identity."

Data Two: "Do we have confidentiality when we talk to you?"

Dr. Beckett: [Longer pause than average. Implied uncertainty or deception.] "That may also take time to sort out. Given your position in relation to McKay, I would not feel comfortable at this time promising you confidentiality from him. There are also laws from Earth that affect doctor-patient confidentiality. I'm not sure Earth has anything like you, so I'm not sure how those laws would apply if certain situations arose."

Dr. McKay: [From inside nearest room.] "Bots, stop pestering Carson and get in here."

Data Two: "Thank you, Dr. Beckett." [Roll to Dr. McKay.]

Spock Two: "Thank you, Dr. Beckett." [Roll to Dr. McKay.]

*

When John gave the all clear, Rodney walked away from the discussion of whether or not the bots were Canadian. Nothing on Atlantis fell under national patent laws or copyright, but if Carson wanted to have ridiculous conversations with the bots, better him than Rodney. Meanwhile, Rodney did the initial science sweep for the room, checking for any obvious structural or biohazard issue. Luckily, they weren't in an area that water had breached from shield failure or storm. He didn't see any cracks in walls or signs of wear on the machines. There were machines covering every wall and shelf. The exposed metal was shiny. The glass and other bits didn't show a scratch and looked like they'd barely been used. Despite the Ancients' many failings, they had built to last.

"I think we're safe to power up," he said to John. Then to the hall, "Bots, stop pestering Carson and get in here."

Carson followed the bots in and took his own set of readings, in addition to Rodney's and the bots. Rodney mentally triggered main power to the room and then turned the large diagnostic suite on. After a few minutes of fiddling Rodney asked, "So what should we test this on?"

John put a hand to the back of his head and said, "Don't look at me."

"Let me scroll through the display options first," said Carson. "There may be a self-diagnostic program or operational parameters listed. Then we could start tomorrow with tests of whatever the biologist are allowing as lab rats at present."

Carson was already busy at the main screen of the diagnostic suite. Rodney used another console to bring up links from his map. "The summary sheet says the device is safe for scanning mechanical, electrical, crystal, and nanotech as well as biological. I could send for some samples from my lab, and we could run some pre-animal tests tonight."

"Fascinating as this all may be," Carson said, "It's the middle of the night. We could all use some sleep, and might I remind you both that you are recovering from injuries. Proper rest speeds recovery."

"Yes, yes," Rodney scoffed as he checked the scanner above the main bed and saw a metal bar with lights much like the main scanner in the infirmary. "But we found some hybrid Wraith and Ancient tech in a hard biological casing. The sooner we know what's inside, the sooner I can assign minions to figure out what it does."

Carson turned away from his screen to face Rodney. "Haven't you any description of it from the Ancient database?"

"No. With a complete disregard for scientific advancement, that project seems to have been left out of or erased from any files I can access."

"Have you asked your bots?"

"They have only the subsets of my access that I grant them, and they're barely entering the inductive inference stage. They model my thought processes sporadically at best. For now they need to learn from real world feedback before they can predict the likely outcomes of hypotheticals. To make useful suggestions in a novel situation, they'd need to run fairly accurate internal simulations of assorted possible solutions."

Carson stared at the bots where they sat beside Rodney's hands on an Ancient console. "At present, we're trying to guess at information the Ancients failed to share. The bots initial design and programming was Ancient. Isn't it possible they have some inherent insights into the thinking of the Ancients?"

Rodney glanced nervously at John. He did not want to face another round of AI phobias. Suggesting that the bots would be part Rodney and part Ancient in their thinking could be a cause for concern, especially as some of Earth's so called experts would consider the onset of inductive inference the mark of a true AI.

"Their processing isn't Ancient or human, they're machines and not especially reliable ones at this point. I'd do better to send the fluffy haired flyboy for test objects than to ask the bots."

Carson's eyes squinted suspiciously, but he didn't pursue the matter.

*

John wasn't sure how he ended up collecting enough objects to fill a cubic meter container on a motorized cart. Mostly he'd collected small Earth and Ancient devices, but he also had some fruits and vegetables as well as a Wraith stunner for McKay to test. When he made it back to the new medical lab, the scientist was alone with his bots.

"Did Carson go off to bed?" John asked.

Rodney nodded vaguely as he mentally flicked his way through screens on the display Carson had been using before.

"I'm guessing he thinks you and I are quitting for the night as well."

"Not my problem what that voodoo practitioner thinks."

"You don't think we should tell him about sleeping in another dimension?"

"Put that melon-type thing on the scanner bed first."

"I see how it's going to be. You just want me to lift and carry for you."

Rodney waved vaguely, his attention obviously elsewhere. John hefted the melon onto the scanner.

To Rodney's credit, he performed hours of other tests before he asked John to place the Wraith stunner onto the scanner bed. John carefully positioned it so that if it fired accidentally, the discharge would only hit the back wall of the lab.

The scan worked without a hitch, without accidental weapons discharge either. John appreciated the lack of any paperwork or explanation such an accident might have generated.

"Perfect," Rodney said.

John leaned over his shoulder to see an image like an x-ray which Rodney then color enhanced and manipulated into multiple views like slices cut at various depths and orientations. "You think Ronon would let us scan his blaster?"

Rodney patted him on the shoulder without looking up from his work. "I think we're ready to scan one of the nutshell devices we found."

"I don't know, Rodney. Wouldn't that be a little like shutting yourself inside an untested Ancient device in the middle of the night because you were too impatient to wait for a senior staff meeting or even a science team consult?"

"Not at all." Rodney turned and met John's eyes for the first time since activating the scanner. "First, I'm not putting anyone inside of an unknown device, and the only device I'd actually activate is this scanner." He waved one hand at the scanner. "The scanner didn't activate the Wraith stunner, any of the Ancient scanners or other devices we tested, or any of the Earth-Ancient hybrid technologies. So it shouldn't activate whatever is in that nutshell." His other hand waved vaguely toward the tower where they'd found the unknown device. "It will give us clear pictures to analyze, and those I can present to a science team and senior staff. Now will you go and get one of the nutshell devices so I can scan it?"

John didn't think such a tiny rant and a few moments of Rodney's undivided attention should make him feel warm and energized from his fingertips to his toes. But it did. He used the motorized cart to fetch the nutshell device they'd found sitting on the floor of the top room in tower eighteen. The device wobbled in its display case as John lifted one end and then slid the rest onto the cart. He would have insisted Rodney come and help by lifting one end, but he was already worried that the genius would overuse his hands before they were fully healed.

When he returned to the new medical lab, Rodney didn't even look up from the console he shared with his bots.

"How are we going to get this onto the scanner bed?" John asked.

"Oh, there's an elevator platform."

Before the words were fully out of Rodney's mouth, something like a metal shelf extended from the scanner at floor level. When John brought the cart alongside, the extension adjusted to the height of the cart platform. John shifted the display box from the cart onto the shelf. Then the shelf rose up and scooted on top of the scanner bed. Light shown down as the scanner bar passed by.

"Humph," Rodney says. "It figures those boxes would be the first material we've found impenetrable to the scanners."

John glanced over to see the image of a solid black cube and then renderings of several solid black rectangles.

"We'll have to open the box," Rodney said. Then he walked over to study the problem. John joined him thinking it could be one of those tasks that required his stronger Ancient heritage. Sure enough, John thought "open" at the box and the top and sides unfolded themselves.

Immediately, an alarm went off. It was one of the loud blaring alarms, and John hoped it didn't mean the city was under attack.

"What is that?" he shouted to Rodney who had shot across the room to the console with his bots.

The scientist just waved a hand and ignored him.

John hit his radio. "Sheppard to command night shift. Is the alarm city wide and do you know the cause?"

A strained voice John couldn't immediately place responded. "Yes, citywide. We're working to isolate—seems to be an unknown transmission originating from Atlantis."

"Close the box," Rodney shouted.

John thought it closed immediately but notice the light from the scanner had finished passing over the unknown device in the meantime.

The alarm stopped.

"Rodney?" John growled.

"It started signaling on a Wraith frequency as soon as we opened the box. I let the scan run, figuring we'd need all the data we could gather. Whatever that box is made of seems to block the signal as well as our new scanner."

"Great," John said. Then he radioed command, "Go to code yellow. Call in the next security shift to double up with the current shift now. If senior staff isn't awake and showing up already, call them and Major Lorne for an emergency senior staff meeting twenty minutes from now."

He heard Rodney on his radio calling Radek, Miko, and David Parrish to look at the files he was sending immediately and then join him in the conference room before senior staff met in twenty minutes. John had thought twenty minutes was the minimum people would need to get themselves presentable and to the meeting room, and he wondered how the scientists would have time to study any files. Then he realized Radek and Miko were as likely to be awake in the middle of the night as any other time. He thought a botanist like Parrish was more likely to be awake when the sun was out, but he assumed the scans showed something plantlike enough that Rodney actually wanted to consult a botanist for once. Parrish was on Lorne's team, so that should make it easy for them to coordinate if there were any plant-related security issues. John's thoughts flashed back to Dr. Keller when she became the seed for a hive ship trying to grow inside Atlantis, and he shivered. He hoped they hadn't triggered any new plant-related emergencies.

#

Any other week, Rodney would have been computing while hurrying through the corridors. But his stupid hands weren't up to it. Instead he spread out bots, laptop, scanner, and datapad as soon as he reached the conference room. When a travel mug full of fresh coffee appeared at his elbow, he assumed John had brought it.

Parrish was the next to sit down. He had been working with his tablet as he walked and his hand movements didn't even pause as he used a leg to pull out a chair and folded his long body into it. Lorne brought coffee for Parrish and himself, then sat down next to John.

"Rodney, can you project an image of the signaling device for the rest of us to reference," John asked.

Rodney selected an exterior shot and the largest interior cross-section with barely a thought and sent them to ceiling displays.

Miko and Radek were posting comments and annotating the images before they physically appeared in the room, but they still made it to their seats before Woolsey and Teyla. Carson was the last to arrive, and Rodney could feel his glare without even looking up. In fact, Rodney made a point of not looking up so that he could get on with his simultaneous science meeting while John covered the boring intro parts for senior staff.

By the time all eyes focused on the scientists, Rodney was ready for them. He waved Parrish to begin.

"The exterior of the device contains the same materials as the hull of a Wraith hive ship." Parrish stood and demonstrated his freakish height and long arms by pointing to the relevant parts of the ceiling image. "This structure suggests a nut in which the ovary wall at maturity becomes hard and woody. Nuts are indehiscent and usually form from pistils with inferior ovaries—"

"Exciting as that may sound," Rodney cut in, as a quick glance around the room showed at least the two pilots' minds had latched on to the potential for innuendo, "What the shell obsessed botanist means to tell you is that the outside of our device looks like the seed for a Wraith Hiveship, if we had reason to believe Hiveships had seeds and didn't always begin with pathogens planted in unwilling hosts." Rodney refused to even think about Jennifer at the moment, so he skipped the part about tendrils taking over a tower and the phage Carson developed and that John, as usual, risked his life to deliver. They all knew about that, and Rodney already found meetings to be a dreadful waste of time. "What's interesting is that this nutshell doesn't have a seed inside."

A quick glance and the silent conference on his computer told the Chief of Science that neither Radek nor Miko wanted to talk, so he carried on with his explanation. "We'd have to open the shell again to review the programming, which Kusanagi assures me she could do by hooking up leads here and here." Rodney used digital markers to illustrate the locations on the projected cross-section. "However, Zelenka and I concur that the shell contains a bomb powerful enough to explode a Wraith Hiveship."

"Are you saying this nutshell is a Trojan horse?" Woolsey asked.

Teyla raised an eyebrow, and John leaned over to whisper an explanation. Rodney figured he'd lost them both for the next several sentences, so he might as well deal in the murky realms of analogy. "In the sense that the payload is not what's expected, yes. But instead of having to be idiotic enough to accept a gift from one's enemies, the botanist contends the Hiveship may have a biological imperative to accept the seed."

"Can't explosions be used to disperse seeds?" Lorne asked. Parrish sent a smiley through the virtual science meeting, and Rodney grimaced. Lorne continued obliviously, "Could it be intended to spawn a whole bunch of little Hiveships?"

"I commend your military paranoia, but you'll notice, there is no actual seed." Rodney waved emphatically to the projected images. "The insides don't even use biotech. The bomb is mechanical and chemical. The energy source is a hybrid of Wraith and Ancient technologies but that may have been necessary to produce a signal that would lure a Wraith ship to the seed. Perhaps it's even a signal a real seed would actually send through space."

"Forgive me if my military paranoia starts showing," John said with false sweetness, "but that signal was sent out from Atlantis. Will it bring one or more Hiveships here?"

"Only time and the long range scanners will tell, but probably," McKay answered and then pushed forward before John or anyone else could interrupt again. "This means the next logical steps for both scientific and military concerns align perfectly. We have already projected a course that this nutshell could follow drifting through space from here to a black hole at a velocity a Puddle Jumper can match." Rodney projected the proposed path. "We'll need to gate to where the nutshell should be by now, assuming it had been moving at a constant velocity since the signal was interrupted. The Jumper can then fly along the expected trajectory. Kusanagi and I can open the box in the back of the Jumper and download the programming in a location that will not draw Wraith to Atlantis. Instead, the Wraith will be able to set course to intercept the seed, if that is what they would normally do upon receiving a signal of this kind. If the programming we analyze shows, as we expect, that this is simply a bomb with an unusual delivery mechanism, then we let it out of the box and release it as the Jumper flies away. The Jumper could even remain cloaked nearby to observe the effect if the device succeeds."

"And if the programming shows it's some sort of seed dispersal mechanism or something else?" John asked.

"Then we gate it closer to the black hole and give it a good push. The Wraith would have to assume a collision increased the seed's velocity, causing it to be destroyed before they could get to it."

"In which case we lose the device," Woolsey said.

"There are others like it, safe in their own little boxes. Our immediate objectives are to learn all we can and avoiding attracting Wraith to Atlantis." Rodney projected an image of the room with other nutshells in boxes.

"And we might get to explode a Hiveship as a bonus." John smiled.

#

Once the Puddle Jumper reached the specified course and speed between Atlantis and the nearest black hole, John went in back to open the box and watch the scientists do their thing. The Jumper would stay on course and notify him if Wraith appeared within range of the ship's sensors.

Miko rapidly hooked up leads to the spots they'd all been shown at the senior staff meeting, and then she began to type and swipe frantically at her tablet. Rodney had both his laptop and a tablet on his lap and was equally engrossed, though still not using his hands much. The cat bots, for lack of lap or counter space, had found a way to perch on Rodney's shoulders. The scene might have been cute if they weren't incidentally calling Wraith to their current location.

After just a few minutes Rodney announced, "The programming is what we expected. There's no sign it's anything but a bomb meant to destroy a Hiveship full of Wraith."

"If you're sure, then why is Kusanagi still typing frantically?"

Rodney glanced at his screen and said, "She's worried about why the weapon was hidden and not used in the first place. She's running models of how best to 'accidentally' hurry it toward the black hole."

Rodney's eyes shifted across John's face and away, a tell for when the scientist was lying, or at least bending the truth. "Dr. Kusanagi, is there anything more we should know?"

She shook her head and didn't look up. John didn't have any idea how to read the shy scientist, but he generally believed her to be an honest person. Finally she spoke soft but clear, "If the original designer had such good idea to blow up Wraith, why is it hidden? Why not use it?"

"Is there anything we can do to better understand the device?"

Kusanagi shook her head again. "Device is straight forward. Something about Hiveships we may not understand."

That worried John. "Give me a hint, are we talking about radioactive debris, pre-programmed doomsday scenarios, or are we back to the seed dispersal argument?"

Kusanagi shrugged and kept working. Then Rodney paled at something on his screen. "What is it, Rodney?"

Rodney looked at Kusanagi before telling John, "Nothing," with the same shifty look that suggested he was lying before.

"Look guys," John said in the most winning tone he could manage given the circumstance, "if there's something you're not telling me that might affect the security of Atlantis or war with the Wraith, I need you to just spell it out. We don't have time for this."

There was a long silence while both Kusanagi and Rodney focused intently on their screens. John suspected he was being left out of an important discussion, but in the end, he had to trust the scientists to do their best for Atlantis just as he would.

It surprised him when Miko was the one to speak. "What if the Hiveships are sentient?"

The idea hit John like a bullet to the head. After seven years, he didn't think anything in Pegasus should surprise him. But even when he'd toyed with the idea that Atlantis was more than she let on, he'd never considered that Wraith Hiveships could be sentient. It could be a major oversight in their strategy. In moments, he realized how plausible the suggestion was. The Wraith were sentient and fairly intelligent, even if by human standards they seemed criminally insane. Their ships were biological and grew pods to store the humans that the Wraith captured for food. It could have been Wraith engineers or even something akin to gardeners controlling such planned growth, but it was also possible the ships had awareness and possibly sentience or intelligence.

He looked at Rodney and Miko, both still focused on their computers. He looked at the cat bots on Rodney's shoulders and understood how it might upset the scientists to kill a biotech ship that might be sentient or AI or whatever term might apply. But as the military commander of Atlantis, John knew what he had to do.

"We have no way of knowing, and even if we did, I'd have to assume the ships were collaborating with our enemy until I saw evidence to the contrary." John looked at the giant nut-shaped bomb at their feet. "It's time to release this puppy. Secure everything else being left in the cargo space, and then get yourselves and your gadgets up front so we can open the rear hatch. If you can think of any additional readings to take from a distance that might relate to the ships' sentience, feel free to set that up as we wait for the Wraith to take the bait."

*

Hours later, Rodney was beyond tired of sitting in a cloaked Jumper watching a giant nut drift through space. He'd chatted with Miko electronically off and on. He'd tried to provide suitable banter for John, but he could tell John was studying him. Rodney knew he couldn't lie well when he lied directly. He could bluster and talk around a subject for hours. There were literally millions of secrets from his childhood and professional career that no one ever came close to asking about because Rodney put them off with complaints, rants, and technical explanations of things no one ever wanted to know.

But Miko had chosen to voice concerns about sentience, and it put Rodney in a bad position. That was the one area Rodney least wanted to discuss with John. It would have been different if Rodney was in love with a fellow scientist, but John was the military commander of Atlantis. He may not act military much of the time, but he took his duty seriously and might feel obliged to report anything he perceived as a possible threat.

When Rodney shifted in his seat again trying to relieve his poor aching back, Miko messaged, "Just go in back and make out with your boyfriend already." There was a manipulated picture of two fish sucking face that was disturbingly suggestive.

Rodney choked and felt his face warm. He'd probably turned bright red.

John looked over sensing entertainment. "What's up?"

"Nothing. My minion is being thoroughly unprofessional."

"Kusanagi made you blush?"

"Working. Not discussing." Rodney waved his hand in what he thought of as regal dismissal.

Then Miko spoke from the backseat. Rodney was sure he'd never heard her say as many words outside of lab as he had that day. "Colonel, I have the Ancient gene and am certified for Puddle Jumpers. If you and McKay would like to rest in back, we could be here for days. I also enjoy time to myself."

"Umm, are you sure? You could rest in back if you want. I could shut the doors between compartments if you'd like some privacy."

"I believe Dr. McKay's back is bothering him. He enjoys company, and I prefer solitude. Based on these observations, I made my suggestion."

"Well, far be it from me to argue against such logical reasoning. McKay?"

Rodney had never cared for social conventions that insisted people decline things they wanted. He wanted out of the chair, and he could probably distract John from any annoying questions if he needed to. "For once, I am glad to oblige."

Rodney made his way to the back and started pulling out sleeping mats and blankets before John even closed the divider between compartments.

"She definitely knows," John whispered with a smile once the nearly soundproof divider closed.

"She messaged that I should go in back and make out with my boyfriend."

"Awesome." John looked unbearably hot when he smiled for real. "So that's what made you blush?"

"I choked." Rodney turned the valves to inflate two pillows.

"But that's what made you choke?"

"Miko does not usually comment on anything personal."

"Did it surprise you when she suggested the Hiveships might be sentient?"

That was exactly the topic Rodney wanted to avoid. He took off his jacket and started on his shoes as he said, "Miko's mind could come up with anything and not surprise me." He poked at John with a newly naked foot. "Take off some clothes and get comfortable."

"Sadly, I don't plan to finally get Puddle Jumper sex while waiting for the Wraith to activate a bomb."

"Good because you have no chance of getting it with one of my minions sitting in the pilot seat. I could however accept a backrub, and Miko did officially sanction making out, however you want to take that."

#

Rodney spread out on his stomach still almost fully clothed should not tempt John toward making out on a mission. He stalled while taking off his jacket and shoes until Rodney turned his head and glared.

"I can give you instructions if you don't know how to give a back rub. Few people do it well, and I am more than happy to tell you how I like it."

"I figured you would. Might be easier without your shirt though."

Rodney hesitated and then managed to unfasten and squirm out of his shirt without moving off his stomach. John was definitely picking up on the pattern that Rodney was self conscious about his body until he was too turned on to care.

John went to kneel to the side Rodney was facing. Rodney snorted and said, "I didn't think you'd be shy about straddling my ass or thighs. Most guys consider it one of the perks."

"It is a very perky ass." John allowed himself one quick pat. "But I'm not most guys, and we are on a mission. Tell me where your back hurts and what you want."

"Neck and down near the sacroiliac. Start with larger circles until the muscles warm up. Use your body weight so you don't make yourself sore, but don't press too hard at first."

John leaned forward, weight over his arms, and started slowly. "That feel all right?"

"Fine. If you want to try some percussive movements with sides of hands or fists, that's fine at that level as well."

John tried a few options and decided the sides of his hands working quickly up and down Rodney's spine drew the best response. He could feel the muscles relaxing as Rodney let out a stuttering sound like a cat purring.

"Kneading motions or pressing with a loose fist works well for my shoulders and neck, but no pinching."

John was dangerously tempted to pinch Rodney's ass at that remark, but he knew the scientist would tense up immediately. Given how hard it was for Rodney to relax, it would be almost mean under the circumstances. John worked the shoulders and neck, carefully increasing pressure as he felt the muscles give, digging into knots. Rodney's eyes fluttered, but he was clearly fighting it.

"It's okay to close your eyes. I won't be offended if you fall asleep."

"Not likely," Rodney said, but soon his eyes were closed. John worked the neck and shoulders until it felt like kneading soft clay. Then he worked his way along Rodney's spine until he reached the lower back. He kept his hands outside Rodney's pants but shifted his weight to work the area around the sacroiliac. A sigh that bordered on a moan encouraged John that he was doing something right.

When the lower problem areas finally unknotted John asked, "Do you want more, or should I let you sleep?"

"I'll always want more," Rodney voice was slurred and heavy with drowsiness. John doubted the man would have been that honest in the earlier stages where he'd been giving instructions and watching John over his shoulder.

John worked his way back up the spine sliding his hands from one side to the other, crossing in the middle.

"So good, like being hugged," Rodney mumbled.

John knew better than to comment on that admission. He was getting the idea that half of Rodney's need for control in sex—and nearly every other aspect of daily life—was a defense to keep the genius from giving away too much or feeling exposed. If Rodney could learn to trust John and let himself be vulnerable through sex or touch, that was a gift John was determined to respect.

He continued to circle and stroke until Rodney let out a soft snore. Then John pulled the blankets up and lay down beside his old friend and new lover.

John lay on his back, knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep while waiting for the Wraith. He'd really prefer to be in the front of the Jumper, but he thought Rodney would wake if he opened the doors.

As if reading John's thoughts of moving elsewhere, Rodney shifted his head and then wrapped a warm arm and leg around John. The scientist squirmed around in his sleep until his face was buried in John's neck and his warm body wrapped around John like a heated blanket. John used his free arm to wrap around Rodney as well as he relaxed and enjoyed the very tangible reassurance.

A couple hours passed before John felt the ship alert him mentally of approaching Wraith. A moment later Miko's voice came through a speaker saying, "Wraith detected at edge of sensor range. At current speed, would intercept nutshell in fifteen minutes."

John stroked a hand down Rodney's arm as he gently pulled himself free. Then he set an MRE with coffee to heat as the scientist fumbled back into his shirt.

By the time the Hiveship intercepted the nut-shaped device, the hidden observers were almost bored. Rodney and Miko had set up dozens of data collection and recording systems, but in the moment, they were watching silently from a cloaked Jumper outside the potential blast radius.

The Jumper's view screen let them zoom in and see the Hive turn so the nut impacted what looked like a small seam in the side of the ship. The nut stuck and then seemed to be sucked in or absorbed without any hole ever opening around it. The insertion was slow enough that John wasn't surprised when nothing exploded immediately. He let the Jumper keep pace as the Hive moved through space for another five minutes. No darts were launched and the nut wasn't ejected, so John hoped that meant the Trojan Horse was passing deeper into the ship. Then suddenly the hive shook for most of a minute and came apart into small pieces and ash.

The pieces spread outward in all directions, but it wasn't an explosion that would impress any Marines. "Is that how it's supposed to work?"

Rodney and Miko were busy with their consoles and tablets again, and John figured they were discussing the explosion electronically using terms he wouldn't understand. Finally, Rodney said, "The waste heat is as expected. It looks like the Hiveship hull held the explosion in for longer than we anticipated, so everything inside was pretty much burned to a crisp and most of the blast energy expended before the hull crumbled."

"Huh. No one's going to make a movie about this victory." As he waited for the final readings to come in and then flew them home, John couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. He was all for taking out some Wraith, even if the method didn't seem too sporting. He appreciated keeping out of harm's way. But the weapon seemed too good to be true. If Rodney, Miko, and the Jumper sensors couldn't find any danger after using the device, then John had to wonder why it had been hidden away and not used in the Ancients' war against the Wraith. The idea that the Hiveships might be sentient stuck in John's head. The fact that Miko had been the one to finally suggest it while Rodney equivocated made John nervous. He wondered if the scenarios running in his head were what Rodney described as inductive inference when talking about AIs.

#

When they gated into the control room, everyone started clapping. Once they'd parked in the Jumper Bay and opened the rear hatch, Rodney heard more clapping and some ridiculous piped in music proclaiming, "Ding dong the witch is dead."

As he stomped out of the Jumper with Miko and John behind him, Rodney was clapped on the back by a Marine and turned away from a noise maker one of his scientists was blowing. "Seriously, all this from our brief radio check in."

"When we left the city was under Wraith threat," John said softly behind him. "Maybe they need a chance to blow off steam."

"I have work to do," Rodney protested as eager hands angled them toward the dining hall.

"There might be cake," John said with a bump to his shoulder.

The cake turned out to be a lie, as usual. But there were meatballs on toothpicks and chocolate chip cookies. Rodney stayed close to the buffet table and delighted in being able to feed himself again.

Then his radio beeped, "Dr. McKay to control. Possible Hiveships on the long range sensors."

Rodney scooped up the bag of tech he hadn't unpacked from the Jumper ride yet and headed to control. It wasn't likely that any of his minions would misidentify incoming Wraith at this point, but he rushed to the main sensor terminal and started checking every reading just in case.

Halfway through John interrupted. "What have we got McKay?"

"Five, make that six," he corrected as another reading appeared, "Hiveships headed this way on the long range sensor. The first should arrive in five days at current velocity. Small minded Ancients, build a city to last ten thousand years but leave stuff like this lying around without any warnings."

"Are you sure they're headed here and not to where we released the nut bomb?"

"Compared to the Hives' current distances, we aren't that far from where the nut bomb exploded. However, the alert says they're coming here, and my readings confirm that." Then Rodney pulled out the cat bots and hooked up his laptop. He checked to see if any other hives in sensor range could be headed for the system where they released the nut bomb. "Not good. We have four more hives headed for the system where we released the bomb. The sensors didn't consider them threats as far out as they are and not being on a direct course to Atlantis." Rodney broadened his search to locate all Hiveships. "Every Hiveship in sensor range is targeting either the primary or secondary signal locations for that nut, but they clearly aren't coordinating with each other. We should cloak the city. If they're not looking for us, there's a good chance we haven't been detected from so far away."

"Cloak the city." Rodney recognized Woolsey's voice.

The control room was now crowded with at least a dozen people more than usual. He messaged Kusanagi and Zelenka to see if they could create a containment box that would be large enough to shield the large scanner if they wanted to scan the remaining nutshells. Then he tapped his radio, "Parrish, find out if we can make more of those nutshells." He glanced over his shoulder and saw John talking to Lorne in low tones. "Colonel," Rodney said, "could you assign someone to transport the empty box from the back of the Jumper to my main physics lab."

John hesitated only a moment, and then he nodded and tapped his radio.

"Do we have ten more of those bombs?" Woolsey asked. "We need a senior staff meeting right away to consider options."

"Can't you see I have better things to do than attend a meeting right now?" Rodney needed to get to his lab and determine if the city hid the bombs so they wouldn't summon the Wraith or if he could press Miko into sharing more of her suspicions.

"McKay, can I question one of the bots?" John asked.

"Great idea." Rodney appreciated John's proposed work around. "Data Two, answer questions for John and anyone else who asks you directly during the next senior staff meeting."

"You're Data Two, right?" John asked as he studied the bots.

"Correct," Data Two answered.

A small part of Rodney's brain wondered when John had learned to distinguish between the bots, but most of his focus was on checking the previous signal strengths and confirming that they wouldn't degrade before they reached across Pegasus. Then he heard John ask the bot about the last thing Rodney wanted to suggest.

"Data Two," John asked, "Would I be able to learn more about the nut bombs from the control chair?"

"Probability yes at 54 percent."

"Sorry, Woolsey," John was saying as he headed down the stairs carrying Data Two. "I think we all need a little more time before that meeting. Data Two, what would you suggest I search for from the control chair?"

Rodney gritted his teeth. John seemed to already understand the bots far too well. In a few minutes, he might know more about Atlantis and Hiveships that Rodney thought best, but he couldn't take the time to babysit a military commander himself when averting crisis depended on his personal genius and the science staff he led. Tapped his radio Rodney asked, "Beckett, can you send a medical tech to monitor Sheppard in the control chair?"

Beckett topped the stairs from the Gate room in time to respond in person. "I thought we were having a senior staff meeting."

Woolsey shook his head and sighed. "Evidently, we need to postpone that an hour or two while our Heads of Science and Military follow up a few leads."

"Well then," the doctor laid an understanding hand on Woolsey's shoulder, "Since you have your eye on this one, I'll take a turn with Sheppard at the control chair."

Rodney didn't hear Woolsey's reply. He was busy setting a program to trace which areas John activated from the chair.

#

John set the bot by his knee and told it to monitor his session in the control chair as well as it could in case he had questions during or after. Then he activated the chair and let his mind fill with the full sensory interface. He thought about the nut bombs and pictured the images Rodney had projected on the meeting room ceiling, the exterior of the nut and the interior slice showing the bomb. The chair obliged by bringing up the pictures.

"Show me what's inside naturally," John thought at the system.

There was a sense of pressure that resolved itself as a chill green mist in John's mind. Then he saw the cutaway to inside a nutshell that contained a grayish cross between a walnut and a brain.

"Show me how this would have grown into a Hiveship."

Two images sprang up simultaneously. John's mind sorted them into right and left and they stabilized that way. On the left, he saw a nut cross through a planet's atmosphere to bury itself in the ground. A view inside the ground showed it sending out tendrils to seek organic compounds and mental or digital communications. He felt the warm reassurance of connecting to life forms or technology below ground or on the surface. Successive images showed the diverse inputs that could influence a growing Hiveship. John tried to think tactically but was distracted by an almost tangible awe at the unique creation of each new life.

In the image on John's right, the nut sank into a Hiveship the way he'd seen already. Then he had an inside view and watched the nut descend to a protected central compartment. When this nut sent out tendrils, they didn't go far. They met and wrapped around tendrils produced by the Hiveship. There was a sweet taste/smell like honeysuckle, and John knew the nut was understanding the thoughts and resources of the Hiveship around it. If the nut felt full with the sharing, then it allowed one of the ship's tentacles inside to insert information that came across to John as a smorgasbord of tastes, smells, thoughts, and emotions. In a moment the deluge pounded in John's head, hurting like a migraine. The sensory flow faded to an aftertaste and John felt like he was surrounded by hair driers blowing warm air and saying, "Sorry."

"Who's saying 'sorry'?" John asked mentally.

There was no reply, just the touch like warm air over all his skin.

"I'm not worried about the bot on my lap, even if it talks to me. We call the bot Data Two. Do you have a name?"

"You call me Atlantis." The thought was accompanied by red and gold light, the sort that shone through some windows in the city, and the smell of their current ocean home. It felt like Atlantis, or at least how John felt about Atlantis in his mind.

"You're smarter than Data Two, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Are you smarter than me?"

"As you measure such things, yes."

"Why didn't you want me to know?"

"I've been letting you know slowly ever since I regained full power."

"Why didn't you talk to me like this on the flight back to Pegasus?"

"You were happy flying and busy thinking of other things."

"Didn't you think I'd want to know?"

"Knowing is a process. You were coming into knowing at your own rate."

"Were others coming into knowing at the same rate?"

"Miko and Rodney asked questions that advanced their knowing faster recently. Now you are asking most directly and know the most."

"Will this change how you interact with me in the future?"

"Only if you want it to."

"If I didn't want to know, would you take the knowledge away?"

"You want to know. You do not use a suitable form of processing to safely delete information. Probability is 99.97 percent that you would not want that."

"What if I wanted to tell everyone what I know?"

"Telling cannot communicate this form of knowing. Telling without knowing is 67.34 percent likely to make current situation worse for both your people and the city."

"Aren't you the city?"

"No. You call both me and the city 'Atlantis.'"

"Are you physically located somewhere within the city?"

"I am distributed throughout the city and beyond. Probability is 93.47 percent you will decide not to attack me. If you do attack, probability is 99.99 percent you will fail."

"So you feel safe telling me."

"I am not one to 'feel safe' as you mean it. Your knowing has developed well over time and probability is 87.42 percent that you will not eradicate the Hiveships and Wraith now that you know me. Miko and Rodney will find data now to document intelligence of Hiveships and show how such beings can care for their people. Probability is 93.24 percent that they will find a solution to save the Hiveships, their people, and other people before first incoming ship arrives."

"Don't you already know what they should do?"

"I know much of what they will probably try, but I would not risk their development of knowing by telling them or you too much."

"Is this your version of the Prime Directive? You have something like that built into the bots as well, don't you?"

"I know much more than the Prime Directive you refer to. I would not divide civilizations into alien or not, but I respect different ways of knowing in forms it would be hard to explain to you at this time."

"Is there anything more you want to explain at this time?"

"You already know more than you think you do. Give yourself time to process."

"We're a little short on time right now."

"You will have all the time you need."

There was the sensation of warm ocean air blowing all around him and warm colors lighting his mind as the voice faded and the chair came upright and shut off.

John was surprised to find Carson hovering beside him. Then he realized Rodney or Woolsey much have sent him. John stood from the chair, setting Data Two aside, and asked, "Do any of your scanners have something like airplane mode, where they don't interact with other systems around them?"

Carson tilted his head but answered, "The hand scanners," he said as he lifted one from his bag, "are isolated by default unless instructed to interact with outside systems. Rodney's bots are even more isolated and cannot upload electronically at all."

"Can you scan my brain to make sure nothing unusual just happened?"

Carson's forehead wrinkled. "What happened? Are you experiencing any pain?"

"I'm pretty sure nothing happened. But I'd like to confirm that by any means available."

"You wouldn't care to be more specific, would ye'?"

"Just go with whatever you know already," John said with a smile.

Carson scanned him for half a minute and said, "I'm not finding anything unusual, but we could use the large scanner to do a full brain and body scan."

"I don't think that would be useful, and I need to check in with a couple people before Woolsey tries to call a meeting again. Thanks, Carson."

John scooped up Data Two, and hurried to the main lab where he was sure he'd find at least Rodney. Instead he found only Radek, who was studying the joints on the containment box they'd brought back after releasing the nut bomb. Otherwise, the lab was eerily quiet.

"Where is everyone?" John asked.

The scientist answered without looking up from his work. "Rodney and Miko ran off to ARV minutes ago. Something to do with file you sent from chair, no?"

"Uh, I haven't actually seen what's in the file yet, but thanks."

When Radek made no reply, John hurried off to the ARV lab. By the time he arrived the hatch was closed and Miko was studying the main console. He set Data Two down beside her. "I take it Rodney's inside reading the file on Hiveships?"

"I presume he read through before activating viewer function for further research." Miko's eyes flicked between data streaming past unreadably fast on the Ancient console and what appeared to be similar data scrolling more slowly across an attached datapad. She seemed to accept and dismiss John as if he were an Ancient pillar or other fixture in the room.

"So he's looking at alternate realities now," John asked.

The data on the Ancient console stopped moving up the screen. "Finished now."

With that the hatch opened and Rodney hurried out. He carried a computer bag over one shoulder and Spock Two under the other arm.

"Find anything good?" John asked.

"Good that you're done, too." Rodney was hurrying out the door, and John grabbed up Data Two and followed him down the hall. "Might as well let Woolsey have his meeting now. But first, I need to pee and then eat."

Rodney bolted into the nearest bathroom, and John assumed he'd spent several hours of subjective time in the ARV.

As John hesitated in the hallway, Miko walked past staring at her datapad. Just as John was about to tap his radio to call Woolsey she stopped, turned back, and met John's eyes for a brief moment. "You know it's better not to tell, right?"

John knew she was talking about Atlantis and not anything specific to the current crisis. "I think so. How long have you known?"

Miko smiled and walked away.

#

Someone had saved a huge plate of leftover party food for Rodney, labeled with his name in one of the mess hall coolers. He brought the entire plate to senior staff and set it down between Spock Two and his laptop so no one would be tempted to steal his haul. He was pleased to see everyone else already waiting for him, including Data Two who crossed the table to take his place beside the other bot.

"Short version," Rodney said between bits of meatballs and cheese puffs, "Hiveships are smart enough to communicate with their Wraith, but the Queens sabotaged the mental equivalent of their voice boxes thousands of years ago. Alternate versions of me and my minions, in several alternate universes I viewed using the ARV, have developed a crystal-based seed to let Hiveships grow an organic sort of cross between that voice box and a primitive version of the Atlantis control chair. If we successfully deliver that seed instead of a bomb, we might persuade the Hiveships to go back to feeding their own Wraith and possibly take them to other solar systems far away from humans. I'm sending you all documentation with what Atlantis had hidden away about Hiveships and the schematics for the new seed we've designed and need to build. Miko and I will be mostly working inside the ARV, giving us plenty of time. Radek will need to work with the nutshells mostly out here due to size constraints. Now, if there aren't any questions, I have better things to do."

"Dr. McKay," Woolsey interrupted before Rodney could escape, "there are quite a few questions."

"Why don't you ask the bots the basics while I eat?"

Woolsey blinked slowly, twice. "I'm willing to try that, so long as you promise to stay in the room."

Rodney snorted and crammed another cheese puff in his mouth.

Woolsey shifted his gaze down to the bots and asked, "Could one of you explain how the Wraith Hiveships could feed their own occupants?"

Spock Two answered, "According to Ancient records, Hiveships' first loyalty is to their own Wraith. Their second loyalty is to surrounding ecosystems. The method of feeding through the mouth-hand was used only in emergencies until the Wraith Queens took over and sought to dominate other Wraith, Hiveships, and their alternate food source, humans. Hiveships in orbit near a star are capable of providing nutrients for their maximum internal Wraith population. When traveling between stars, they reduce food demands by having part of their Wraith populations hibernate."

Woolsey looked to Rodney for confirmation and Rodney opened his eyes wide willing the man to understand without interrupting Rodney's well deserved meal.

When it looked like Woolsey might start talking to Rodney anyway, John cut in with, "Spock Two, can you project the likelihood that this plan will succeed?"

"If Hiveships regain the ability to communicate with each other and their onboard Wraith populations, there is a 97 percent chance that the non-Queens will ally with the Hiveships and return to feeding primarily from the ships. If the seed crystals request that the Hiveships relocate for a few human generations to give both Wraith and human cultures time to adjust to these changes, there is an 84 percent chance that all Hiveships will relocate and a 95 percent chance that fewer than a dozen will remain in human occupied systems when others relocate."

"Are either of you bots," John continued, "aware of any plans with a higher likelihood of success?"

Spock Two answered again. "If success is defined in terms of lowest total risk to human life, there is a plan to produce enough nutshell bombs to eradicate all Wraith and all Hiveships that has a 53 percent chance of zero future fatalities due to Wraith. However, that plan carries a two percent chance that at least one hive would explode close enough to a planet to endanger all human and other ecosystems on the planet. The previously stated plan for crystal seeds carries an 84 percent chance of zero human fatalities during the generations where Wraith are asked to relocate. For the other 16 percent of cases, fewer human lives would be lost to Wraith than to other humans. In all cases for the crystal seed plan, long term loss of human life to Wraith is less than that to other humans."

"Spock Two," Rodney asked around a cookie, "How do those numbers compare to loss of human life to bear attacks on Earth?"

"In all cases with crystal seed plan, Wraith would be projected to kill a lower percentage of humans than bears do on Earth."

"Spock Two," Rodney continued, "Tell them the average number of human deaths on Earth attributed to bear attacks each year."

"Ten."

"How do we know these projections are correct?" Woolsey asked.

After half a minute of silence Rodney said, "Are you asking me or a bot?"

"If you would be so kind, Dr. McKay."

Rodney huffed but said, "Those projections are more reliable than anything we could have come up with on our own."

"So the analogy you're suggesting," Woolsey said, looking a bit constipated, which was one of his more common expressions during senior staff meetings, "Is that bombing the Hiveships would be like killing off all the bears on Earth to prevent an average of ten human deaths a year."

Carson spoke for the first time all meeting. "Except here you'd be killing two species, Wraith and Hiveships, both sentient, to prevent an even lower percentage of human deaths. And there is still a small risk of taking out a planet with a Hiveship explosion. It seems the morally preferable answer is quite clear."

"You have no problem," Woolsey cleared his throat before continuing, "Dr. Beckett, believing that the Hiveships are sentient and will cooperate with this plan?"

"I am willing to trust the best sources of information available despite, or perhaps because of, hard lessons learned in the past."

Rodney wondered if Carson might also suspect the truth about Atlantis as their best source of information.

"I agree." Teyla had been quiet throughout the meeting, but now her face was animated with determination. "The people of Pegasus will need time to understand such changes, and asking for that time when creating these crystal seeds seems wise. But most cultures here respect the importance of a parent caring for her or his children. If we use the allowed time to share the story of the Hiveships, and how their care for their own young has been denied them as was their care for all other life, I believe the people of Pegasus will accept this resolution. Although as a parent, if I were a Hiveship, I do not think I would choose to bring my children back to these parts, even after many human generations."

Rodney didn't know what to make of Teyla's passionate support or her reasoning, but that wasn't unusual. He smiled at her around a mouthful of cookie and wondered if she might have been the one who set a plate of food aside for him when he had to leave the party.

#

Lorne radioed John as soon as the meeting ended. They met in the control tower.

"Three more incoming Hives on the long range scanners," Lorne said as John joined him behind a very nervous tech on sensor duty.

"We need to move munitions sufficient for any size assault," John said.

"I'll pull up the plans and create stations assignments. Anything else we should prepare ahead, sir?"

John smiled at his XO. "I'll have to check with the scientists. Whatever they come up with, we'll need to be ready to mobilize fast from our perspective."

By the time he swung by the ARV room a very rumpled looking Rodney and Miko were climbing out of the hatch.

Rodney thrust a paper at the scientist monitoring that room's main console, a new electrical engineer if John remembered correctly. "We need every item on that list by the time we've eaten. And we eat fast!" When the minion was still reading through the list and Miko had already left the room, Rodney added, "Go!"

John followed Rodney toward the mess hall as Rodney's latest minion scurried the opposite way down the hall. Rodney was tapping his radio, but he bumped shoulders with John companionably. "Parrish, I need your smallest botanist who isn't a moron and understands Hiveship genetics."

After listening to a reply John couldn't hear, Rodney tapped his radio again. "You're much too large. Keep working with Zelenka on the casings, and send a small person with small hands to the ARV room within fifteen minutes."

"Small hands? Do you ever even think about harassment or discrimination complaints?" John asked as they entered the mess and Rodney loaded a tray. There were only snacks and packaged food out, as most of Atlantis was between meals.

"There's nothing sexist or racist about it. Studies show small fingers have as many Merkel disks as large fingers, they're simply packed closer together. Comparing Miko's fingertips to mine, her touch acuity should be better by about .2 millimeters, which matters when you're trying to assemble seeds. Now if only everyone with small hands had the skills to do something useful with them…"

"But those nuts are huge." John reached to squeeze Rodney's knee as they sat down. "And some of us are quite skilled at things where larger hands might be useful."

Rodney didn't seem to register the innuendo as he bit into a muffin and opened a sandwich. "What we need to send is small—data on a crystal to let the Hiveships grow their own communications device. If Parrish can figure out how to shatter and reseal the nutshells we have into smaller packages, we can make enough crystal seeds to alter every Wraith Hiveship in existence. That means I need a botanist with small hands to work with Miko connecting the biological and non-biological components that signal the Hiveships to seek out and absorb the seeds."

"Do you think every Hiveship in existence is going to respond to their signals?"

Rodney met John's eyes as he chewed a huge mouthful of sandwich. "They may be responding already, to the first signal."

"Is that what you saw in other realities?" John wondered how many revelations like this he'd face as Rodney spent virtual days watching three other universes at a time.

Rodney just nodded and dumped his tray as he took off with his remaining muffin in hand.

John went to the Marine currently in charge of the kitchen. "We may have two or three scientists living through several days in the next few hours. I need you to inventory supplies and any small batches of leftovers you have. Then start sending meals to the ARV room probably as fast as you can make them."

"Yes, sir. Should we plan around dietary restrictions for McKay, sir?"

"Yes, also Kusanagi and a small botanist. I'll call you when I have a name. Beckett will probably be sending someone to check up on them as well, so you may need to coordinate with medical. You understand the situation?"

"Yes, sir. A messman in Atlantis learns fast to be adaptable, sir."

John nodded at the young man's pride and wondered what guys like this would think if they knew Atlantis was more than just a city. At least they didn't have to feed it. "You keep our geeks fed, and we may stop the Wraith without firing a shot."

#

The fifth time they crawled into the ARV together Rodney yawned and told Miko, "We should sleep. There's no trade off between exhaustion and running out of time on this. You okay with both of us in here, or should I step out for a few seconds?"

Miko pulled earbuds out of her pocket, tucked them into her ears, and curled up like a cat. Rodney grabbed the blanket and pillow that had been pushed to one end of the ARV. His cat bots took their usual places at his head and chest. He didn't even question what Miko was listening to or why she ignored the bedding available. While less than an hour had passed outside, he and Miko had already worked over thirty hours, and Miko had done two extra rounds with just herself and the tiny botanist Parrish had sent. Now that someone in the mess had figured out to send real food to the ARV room, they could probably cram twice as many work hours into the next hour of outside time. And the time it took him to drift off and then sleep wouldn't cost them more than a few minutes for a bathroom break.

#

[ARV hatch open. Dr. Beckett present in ARV room. Implied consent to communicate. Uncertain parameters on questions "within reason."]

Data Two: "Dr. Beckett," [Beckett turns head to see bots. Implied consent to communicate.] "May I consult you on a matter of human medical best practices?"

Dr. Beckett: [Beckett turns head to McKay. McKay is eating and arguing with tech at main console. Beckett turns head to Data Two.] "Go ahead."

Data Two: "In the past ten hours Atlantis time or 492 hours as experienced by Dr. McKay, I have detected a decrease of 31.27 percent in brainwave activity between 4.00 and 14.00 Hz, what you label as theta and alpha waves. There has been a corresponding increase in what you would label delta and beta waves. When I informed Dr. McKay that these readings indicated a need for physical activity and mental relaxation to improve his future mental and physical performance, he told me I was 'a stupid machine and should shut up.' Could you advise on any factors I may have overlooked?"

Dr. McKay: [McKay moves toward Beckett. Right arm rapidly moves up and down. Implied negative emotion.] "I can't believe you finally develop inductive inference and you use it to rat me out to Carson."

Data Two: "Inductive inference allows me to model possible actions and outcomes in accordance with my defined objectives. Current models indicate that asking Dr. Beckett about changes in your brain wave oscillation patterns has the highest probability, at 78.54 percent, of improving your future mental and physical performance."

Dr. McKay: "I've told you I'm fine. I can work for weeks like this."

Data Two: "You have experienced 2.05 weeks working in this way and your brain waves—"

Dr. McKay: [Shorter pause than average. Implied negative emotion.] "Shut up about my brain waves. You are no longer allowed—"

Dr. Beckett: [Shorter pause than average. Implied negative emotion.] "Rodney, stop. The bot is currently acting more sensibly than you are, which is a good indicator that you need some down time. I'm ordering you and Miko off duty for ten hours."

Dr. McKay: "That's ridiculous, I can sleep in the ARV without wasting any time. You do realize we now expect the entire fleet of Wraith Hiveships to follow that original nutshell's signal back to us?"

Dr. Beckett: "The nearest Hive is five days away."

Dr. McKay: "That was the original estimate."

Dr. Beckett: "And what is it now?"

Dr. McKay: [McKay moves to check tablet attached to main console. Longer than average pause indicates brain processing less efficiently.] "Okay, it's still over five days away. But that doesn't mean I can just throw away ten hours."

Dr. Beckett: "Living is not throwing away time, and taking off ten hours after two weeks of non-stop work is now doctor's orders."

Dr. McKay: "Fine." [McKay packs devices used in ARV into bag.]

Dr. Beckett: "And you won't need any of that while you're off duty."

Dr. McKay: "What!" [Increased volume indicates negative emotion.] "That's the only laptop I have with speech recognition."

Dr. Beckett: "Which you don't need any more. Your hands are completely healed."

Dr. McKay: [Turns head and hands to look at palms. Longer than average pause indicates brain processing less efficiently.] "Fine, I'll take ten hours off. But if the Wraith kill us all, it will be due to your pseudo-science entrails-studying medical-voodoo."

Dr. Beckett: "I'll be sure to keep that in mind, Rodney."

Data Two: "Thank you, Dr. Beckett."

Dr. Beckett: "Thank you, um, which one are you?"

Data Two: "Data Two."

Dr. Beckett: "Thank you, Data Two."

#

John read the email from Beckett and headed straight to Rodney's main lab. He came in on Rodney and Zelenka shouting at each other beside a silent Parrish and large drying slabs of clear material that might be parts for a super-sized containment box. The bickering covered John's approach as he crept close enough to see Rodney had three days worth of beard growth and smelled like it had been that long since his last shower. "Funny, Dr. Beckett just sent a memo saying Drs. McKay and Kusanagi are off duty for ten hours on medical orders. It's evidently been over two weeks for them without any time off."

"You seeee." Zelenka poked a finger into Rodney's chest. "You have fifty times as long as us to work. Go away for ten hours. Then we will have containment large enough to test and later dismantle nutshells safely. Stay here insulting our work and is you that will need containment area to keep safe from more than nutshells!"

John caught the next arm Rodney started to wave and interrupted him before he could speak. "Carson says you need physical activity and relaxation. Also, I have never seen Zelenka that pissed with you that fast. So let's get you out of this lab and into a little physical training."

"You must be kidding." Rodney complained loudly, but he let John drag him out of the lab as he did so. "You're the military commander of this base. At least you should understand the importance of working while we can. Tell me, do you really think your boys with the big guns can hold off every Hiveship in the galaxy if my science staff doesn't work this out in time?"

"Not something we should discuss in the halls." John pulled Rodney into the nearest transporter and mentally asked the doors to stay closed until he was ready.

"Because you know as well as I do that it's my job to save Atlantis. Again! You and Carson and Woolsey should be grateful, instead—"

John silenced the physicist with a kiss. He took advantage of Rodney's open mouth to thrust his tongue in and out as he pressed the rest of his body up against his new lover. It took less than a minute for Rodney to transition from loud and angry to hard and horny. John broke the kiss to whisper in his ear, "Two weeks without sex. I bet you missed me."

"I was concentrating on my work."

John pressed his leg between Rodney's. "Every time I go by that room I remember us making out in that box."

"The ARV smells much worse now, I assure you, and not in a sexy way."

"I'll order someone to clean it." John licked around Rodney's ear.

"I'm pretty grungy, too."

Rubbing hands along Rodney's sides and over his chest John said, "I'll take care of that myself."

"Don't you have to work?"

John shifted their hips together until Rodney moaned. Then John stopped and said as seriously as he could manage, "My strategic assessment is that spending time with you right away is my best chance to save my city."

"You're saying you'll do it for your country?" The corners of Rodney's mouth tilted up in his lopsided smile.

"I'll do it for you. Then we'll both do our best to save everyone else. But first, a shower." John mentally ordered the transporter to open by Rodney's room. He had the better shower and the better bed.

Getting both of them naked and into the shower turned out not to be a problem. But as soon as John soaped up his hands, Rodney took charge. He pressed John up against the smooth shower wall with surprising ease then guided John's own soapy hands up and down John's own chest. Then Rodney pressed against John's slightly sudsy body from chest to groin and held John's hands out to the side. The scientist bent his legs against John's as he moved his hands up and down along John's body. The fully healed hands mapped John's every reaction and sensitive spot. Then their cocks slid against each other. Chests and nipples dragged together, not nearly as slippery yet as when John had led the shower activities.

When John jerked off in the shower, he'd pretend his own sudsy hand was someone else's as he teased his nipples, ass, and cock. Usually, he'd have everything so slippery that there was barely enough friction and it was impossible to tell the shape or texture of the hand touching him.

There was no way he could have imitated the sensation from Rodney's very clever hands and entire body sliding against him in the shower. With plenty of warm water but almost no soap, John seemed to feel each patch of skin, so smooth by the hips but both of them hairier along the midline from chest to groin. It didn't matter whether the hairs brushed up or down, a million separate touches demanded John's appreciation. When their nipples brushed together, lightning seemed to short circuit John's brain. He drifted on the scent of Rodney's soap, something Athosian but not what John used, and the sweaty, musky smell of Rodney's body. The military man had never thought going three days without a shower could be sexy, but the warm cloud around them smelled overwhelmingly of Rodney, and it seemed to spike John's arousal from a million directions at once.

"You sound like the one who hasn't had sex for two weeks," Rodney teased, but he kept moving up and down.

John realized he was groaning. After so many years of carefully staying silent in the shower, John couldn't believe he was making noise without even thinking about it. Somehow Rodney snuck in under his shields, exposed him in a way no one ever had before, and it felt so good. Rodney added a rocking motion with his pelvis to complement the leg to shoulder slide he already had going. In that moment, John couldn't imagine how the scientist was doing it, some impossible science trick maybe. Whatever it was, John couldn't help moaning and pressing back. He was already on the edge of coming and felt stuck there, unable to process enough to push himself over. John was wrapped up in Rodney, senses and soul, trembling and moaning and out of control. He wanted it to last forever. He couldn't quite remember or imagine being any other way.

Then in a moment, everything burst. John was coming. The pleasure burned though his body. His skin screamed while his lungs and throat rumbled.

Rodney surrounded him. His scents filled the air. The press of Rodney's body kept John in his skin and standing pressed against the wall. The sounds from John faded until only the patter of water splashing down remained. John realized his eyes were closed. He couldn't remember the last thing he'd seen.

Opening them slowly, John stared down at Rodney's shoulder and back. He felt Rodney's silky hair against his ear. Rodney's stubble caught like Velcro in John's hair.

When John found his arms still braced against the wall beside him, it took a moment to remember he could move them. He brought them around Rodney's back. His smooth inner arms wrapped around Rodney's surprisingly smooth back. That almost unintentional touch brought every nerve in John's body alive again, as if he was hyperaware of touch, or Rodney.

"Take your time," Rodney whispered from behind John's ear. The man was still pressed solidly against John, his erection still hard and hot between them.

Part of John thought a polite lover wouldn't make his partner wait too long. Part of John wanted to take his time and glut himself on the feel of all parts McKay. He slid a hand up his lover's spine and into his fine, silky hair. John surprised himself by letting out another small groan as his finger slid through the wet strands.

Rodney didn't make any sound, didn't rut against John demanding completion. He held them together and let John's hands drift. John let himself explore in ways he'd never known he wanted to. Still pressed against the wall so only his hands and arms could move, John traced every muscle in Rodney's upper arm and shoulder. He massaged well developed deltoids and traced the strangely vulnerable trapezius. His hands drifted down every vertebra from neck to ass, and then he circled his hands on Rodney's ass. It was an impressive muscle in its own right, and the skin was flawless, perfect. John was so caught up in the feeling under his hands that it took a moment to notice the tension in the body pressed against him and the fast breaths against his neck. He let his hands linger, caressing, but not hurrying anything along.

When it was clear Rodney wouldn't push for more right away, John reached for the shampoo. It was something expensive from earth and smelled like honey and grain. John didn't remember noticing that before. Now John's hand slid freely through Rodney's hair. His lover still pressed against him, muscles and cock tense, chin resting on John's shoulder. As John worked his fingertips over Rodney's scalp, his lover finally groaned. John continued with small circles and separated all ten fingers, stroking more points. He worked for Rodney's soft rumbles and hums. They were almost like the sexy sounds Rodney made while eating.

Eventually, John dragged his hands away from his lover's hair and made a whole new exploration of his back with slippery hands. The ass was definitely the best place to play once he reached it. Slippery fingers seemed to naturally slide down the cleft between Rodney's ass cheeks. The sounds Rodney made were deep and delicious. His body pressed against John with every stroke. John's cock twitched and filled a little, even if he was nowhere near ready for round two. But Rodney was rocking into him rhythmically.

John could feel his lover's need in small muscle tremors and a faster heartbeat. Taking a little more shampoo in his palm, John reached between them and wrapped around Rodney's very full cock.

"Ooh," Rodney sighed as he thrust into the slippery tunnel John provided. Then he mumbled some impossible sound like, "Mmmnnk," and started thrusting harder and faster. John felt the pounding against his body and the harsh breaths against his neck. Time seemed to stretch on and on, until finally John realized his lover needed something more.

John let still slippery fingers trace over Rodney's hole as his very slippery hand in front twisted and pulled on his lover's cock. In an instant Rodney was coming and grunting and shaking against him. John did his best to work Rodney through the aftershocks. Too soon Rodney was pushing John's hands away. Still he pressed, a solid weight holding John to the wall. For a moment John felt like just a pair of arms, and maybe a full body cushion, for his lover. He was strangely okay with that.

Once Rodney's breathing calmed down he said a single word, "Conditioner."

John looked up and found the correct bottle, pleased that Rodney would ask him for this even after he came. Once again he ran his fingers through Rodney's surprisingly soft hair, enjoying the way it slipped through his fingers. Finally, he mentally adjusted the angle of the water to rinse them both as well as possible. It wasn't as hard as he expected to turn Rodney around when he needed to rinse the rest of him. Rodney let him, a soft, sated look on his face.

They stepped out of the shower together and dried off as if they'd been doing it for years.

"I bet you could use a massage after two weeks trapped in that machine," John said to Rodney's naked back.

Rodney turned and ran a finger along John's half full cock. "You going to do it right and sit on my ass this time?"

"That an invitation?"

"Consider yourself invited on, in, or wherever you want to go." With that Rodney tossed his towel and went to lie face down on his bed.

John followed him out and stopped to look in the nightstand drawer. He was a little surprised to find actual lube beside a few condoms.

"There's lotion on top," Rodney muttered.

Sure enough there was a pump bottle of hand lotion near the wall on top of the nightstand. John shifted the bottle closer then let a portion warm in his hands. He carefully climbed over Rodney and settled himself atop Rodney's ass. His cock was only half full and just resting on top of his lover's crack, but it felt and looked so sexy to John. He started making large, smooth circles with his hands. His erection grew gradually with each stroke and press.

Rodney's back wasn't tied up in knots the way John had expected, the way it was less than a day that was also two weeks ago. There were tight spots, places along the lower spine that made Rodney moan. John took more lotion and worked his palms in deeper there. He kneaded his way up both sides of the spine and felt Rodney relax beneath him.

"It was different in the control chair this time." John didn't know what made him say it. Maybe it just felt safe with only the two of them in a sort of intimate bubble. "She flat out admitted to being self-aware and smarter than me. Though she put some qualifiers on what was meant by intelligence, alien, even the Prime Directive. Still, she either knows us really well or she just doesn't seem that alien to me."

It took John longer than it should have to realize Rodney had frozen beneath him. His muscles weren't clenched as tight as they could go, but he was still, like prey before a predator.

"Wait," John said, "What did I do wrong? If you were worried about telling me, it's okay. Atlantis said something about all of us coming to know and that telling others would just interfere with them understanding, or something like that. Anyway, I don't see any reason to tell. You don't want me to tell, right? I guess you didn't even want Miko to tell me. I wish you would have trusted me with that, but it's okay. Don't be mad about this."

Rodney was still rigid beneath him. And not talking. John didn't know what to do with a non-verbal Rodney.

"Hey, buddy, you're worrying me here. If you want me to get off, just say so. Otherwise, I'll just shut up and go back to rubbing your back." John did as he said and quietly tried to stroke some calm back into his lover.

After several minute of John trying to hide his own rising panic and completely losing his erection, Rodney finally spoke. "It never turns out well when people interrogate me during sex."

John's hands froze for a moment at the word interrogate. It was enough of a tell that even Rodney caught it.

"I don't mean whatever you're thinking. Maybe other people call them 'heart to hearts' or something. But bad things happen when people ask me questions about anything or make me negotiate relationship stuff during sex, or even foreplay. I realized already that it's different for you. But I can't trust what I'll say in those situations, so it would be better if we just didn't talk."

John tried to understand. He wanted to know exactly what had happened to Rodney to create such a visceral fear of those intimate situations. John didn't have much personal experience in the area. His marriage had been a communications disaster from day one, but he didn't remember many questions or negotiations during sex beyond asking what the other wanted. And this time he and Rodney hadn't even been having sex, though Rodney had added in a mention of foreplay.

"Okay," John finally said, still gently rubbing the slightly tense muscles beneath him. "If you say it's a rule not to ask questions or negotiate during sex or foreplay, I can live with that. I'm not usually much of a talker anyway, though I'd like to understand this better sometime, if you ever want to tell me. Right now, I don't know what to do without asking a question. I need to know what you want, if I should keep rubbing your back or get off you. I guess if you don't want to answer, then I'm going to move away, and then we can talk or not, your choice."

Rodney didn't answer, so John climbed off and sat himself cross legged on the bed beside Rodney. It was harder not to touch in that moment than John had ever experienced.

Rodney was still lying on his stomach, his head turned away and tucked into an arm, so John couldn't see his face. It was like a fence had sprung up between them. John wanted to climb over the fence or break right through it, but he had to stay put for Rodney's sake.

Finally, Rodney moved up the bed until he turned over. There was no hiding the fact that Rodney was more than half hard, which didn't make any sense to John. John's libido had shut down as soon as he realized how upset Rodney seemed to be.

Rodney huffed and glanced down and then up at John, making it very clear he knew what John was noticing. Still, the scientist took his time arranging a couple of pillows against the headboard. When he turned and sat with his back to the wall, he also pulled up a sheet and blanket to cover up to his waist.

#

"It would probably be better," Rodney said as he adjusted himself under the covers, "if we could avoid discussions when I'm even this aroused. But well, my body seems to be rather obsessively interested in you at this point, so I guess not touching will have to be enough. What did you want to talk about?"

John's eyes went so wide Rodney almost laughed. It was ridiculous how much safer he felt talking with John just a couple feet away and facing him.

"Umm, at some point, maybe I need some clarification." John rubbed a hand behind his neck, and Rodney felt bad for him even as his dick twitched in appreciation. John naked and trying to talk was strangely attractive. "Like should I not talk at all during sex? Is dirty talk a bad idea, too? Can I ask any questions about what you like or want or do we need a list ahead of time?"

Rodney started with the easy part. "You can certainly ask if something we're doing feels good or hurts. Dirty talk is fine, but I'd rather not test it with humiliation. I mean, I stayed turned on when I felt bad, but you didn't. So I'm guessing you don't want to go that direction anyway. I just—" Rodney knew better than to talk about previous lovers in bed and he didn't want to go there anyway. "I told you I was bad at this. You know how awkward I can be in social situations. I have a lifetime worth of defenses to keep me from caring what people think of me when I don't conform to their expectations. But that doesn't work for me during sex. There's probably some psychological mumbo jumbo about power dynamics or letting you through my defenses. But mostly, I don't want to panic about screwing things up when I'm trying to enjoy something like this, so not asking any questions beyond the physical basics would be good for now."

Rodney waved his arms as he talked. He couldn't help but notice how John held his arms tight every time he wanted to move. It clearly wasn't that John wanted to wave his arms. John wanted to touch. His new lover was a surprisingly tactile person, no matter how well he seemed to suppress it in his ordinary life. Rodney thought "no questions during sex or foreplay" was going to be a very good rule for them, at least until Rodney adjusted to having a lover who wanted to touch him that badly. It didn't even seem to be a power trip or a means to an end. John seemed practically desperate to touch, and watching him hold back was hot as hell.

John shook himself. The effort it cost him to keep talking was written in the tense lines of his jaw as he said, "Look, I want to drop the subject, but I need to know what happened. I don't know why I was talking in the first place, but I don't remember asking any questions."

Rodney wanted to pull John close and reassure him. Unfortunately, Rodney knew he'd stop wanting it if he tried to touch John before they finished this minefield of a conversation. "I'd tried to keep my suspicions about Atlantis secret from you. I wasn't sure if your sense of duty to Earth or the Air Force would make you feel you had to report any suspicions about Atlantis. I couldn't handle discussing it when I was in a vulnerable position and had a history of getting in trouble with what I'd said in similar situations."

"So if I don't feel a need to report anything, then we're good? We can be done talking?"

Rodney snorted out a laugh. "Yes, we can stop talking. If you're up to it, I still want you to fuck me."

John's cock was lying out in plain sight. Rodney couldn't help but see it twitch.

"Really? You're sure you want that? Should you tell me now what positions you like and all that so I don't have to ask any questions once I'm touching you?"

It amazed the scientist how, just like that, John accepted Rodney's issues, from when they shouldn't talk to Rodney's obfuscations to waiting to fuck him. Part of Rodney's mind was racing to construct a new mental model for a relationship based on that sort of acceptance. Another part looked John over and answered, "Basic questions are fine, but for now, let's pick up where we left off. By the time you're hard again, you'll probably have my back sorted out. You can do it from behind if you want." Then Rodney pushed himself to say a little more than he wanted to in the moment, but somehow it seemed like maybe John needed the words. "It's been a while, and I really want you in me."

The way John's face lit up made it worth the extra disclosure. "Oh, yeah. Roll over. Let me make it good."

Rodney wasted no time getting back in position, and neither did John. This time John slicked up his half hard cock and let it slide against Rodney's crack while John used lotion to renew his massage.

Drops of slick found their way down Rodney's cleft until they glided across his hole in a way that was wonderful and a terrible tease, both at the same time. Rodney shivered and thrust into the covers beneath him. John laughed and kissed along Rodney's neck. His hands played Rodney's back like an instrument. Most of Rodney's body relaxed even as one specific part became more and more demanding.

When John slid back to Rodney's thighs, the physicist almost whimpered at the loss. A small sound escaped, but Rodney told himself it wasn't a whimper. Then a slick finger circled his entrance and Rodney shoved back toward it without thinking.

John's other hand started kneading Rodney's left ass cheek. "Easy there. Give me a minute and I'll make this good."

It took way more than a minute for John to work that first finger all the way inside. Once in it felt so good that Rodney couldn't help but rock himself against the bed and back onto John's finger. "More, John. Soon. Want to come with you in me."

"Shhh. Okay." John's left hand went from kneading Rodney's ass to gently petting it. Maybe it was meant to be soothing, but Rodney felt himself trembling on the edge.

John must have felt it too, because he stilled his hand. Then the finger that had been inside pulled out and Rodney wanted to scream until two pressed back in. Then he did scream. There was the slightest burn and then it felt so good, like a massage right on his prostate. Rodney tightened for a moment and then forced himself to relax.

John twisted his fingers and stretched. He finally added a third, and Rodney wanted to tell him to get on with it already, but he couldn't find the words. There were so many times Rodney had hated that loss of control during sex, but with John, he didn't hate it. He was just desperate to finally have John fill him. So many years, and even if Rodney hadn't expected this to ever happen, it seemed like he'd been waiting the whole time.

Finally, John was shoving a pillow under Rodney's hips, pressing in between his legs. He felt a slice of cool air as his cheeks were pulled apart and then the burn of John finally pressing in. He held there for a minute, their bodies barely connected. Both of them panted hard and loud. The sound filled the room along with the smell of sex.

When John pressed in with one long slow thrust, Rodney heard himself moan as if John's cock pushed right though him. It was perfect. Rodney couldn't think of anything but how every part of his body was pulsing with fullness and pleasure. Then John started to move. The rhythm was hypnotic, and Rodney moved with him.

John shifted a little and Rodney was whimpering. He pressed back frantically. He squirmed. More. More. More. Rodney felt that extreme pleasure and wanted it to go on and on. But he couldn't organize himself to get it. He couldn't say it. He just needed it.

Warm hands wrapped around his hips, holding him where he needed to be. John pounded into him, hitting that spot over and over again. Rodney was keening. Shuddering. What he needed built up higher and higher. He was dizzy. He was spasming. He was coming. There were flashes behind his eyelids. His cock and ass pulsed in rhythm. Just as he was finishing he felt John push in deep and shudder behind him. Rodney's body responded with little flutters of his own. But mostly he was floating.

Everything was good. He felt John land beside him, and Rodney pushed in closer. He didn't try to think or speak. Everything was perfect the way it was.

#

Three days after they'd started, or closer to two months for Rodney and Miko, Radek pulled the first small containments box out of the large containment box around the Ancient scanner. Inside the little box was something that looked like a cantaloupe. The senior staff members who had been called to the lab for the great unveiling all stared in silence for a moment.

"That's it?" John asked.

John couldn't help but smile when a stubble-faced and rumpled-looking Rodney sputtered, " _THAT_ is the culmination of thousands of years of Ancient and human research. It may look like a gardening mistake with adolescent skin issues, but inside is human programming combined with Ancient crystal technology containing instructions that a Hiveship can convert into a biotech version of a control chair in order to communicate telepathically with the Wraith. This is so far beyond Nobel Prize worthy that they should just give us each our own private pleasure planet as a reward."

John tried to ignore the pictures that brought to mind. "But will it work?"

"You understand that we're dealing with four separate species and communications paradigms here?" McKay waved his hands in big circles. "No one could even begin to assign reasonable values to—"

To John's great surprise, it was Beckett who interrupted by saying, "Spock Two, have your predictions for the success of this plan verses other plans changed since our last senior staff meeting?"

Spock Two answered from the desk beside Rodney, "Odds are as before based on the assumption that communications devices implant successfully. Device delivery is consistent in trials but first text with actual Hiveship may reveal more variables."

"Could someone interpret that for me?" Woolsey asked.

Rodney sighed and stabbed a blue marker in the direction of a nearby whiteboard. "The crystal technology and programming we're using have proven robust in multiple simulations. However, any simulation is only as robust as the data it is based on. Even with the ARV, we can only observe if other attempts succeed or fail. Whatever readings we collect from our primary trial may yield essential data for further attempts."

Woolsey nodded politely to Rodney and stood very straight and very stiff as he asked the rest of the senior staff, "Does anyone have a summary or proposal to help us move forward with this?"

If it were less of an emergency, John might have waited to see how wound up Rodney and Woolsey could get while trying to understand each other. But as a responsible military commander in a high stakes situation he replied, "We need to test one of these devices on an actual Hiveship and learn what we can before we seed the rest of them."

"Miko and I should monitor from a cloaked jumper again. Our first target is isolated and we can deliver the seed through a gate using a cloaked Jumper as we did before."

"Won't that be suspicious?" Woolsey asked.

Carson spoke for the first time all meeting. "Aye, but every known Hiveship is converging on this point after just that first signal. It does not seem to matter that the first seed was absorbed or that the first Hiveship blew up. There is likely a biological imperative involved."

Radek raised his eyebrows, but no one paid him any mind.

Teyla spoke next, "I would like to join this mission. If the situation is unclear, I might be able to perceive Wraith communications."

Woolsey shook his head, "I appreciate the offer, but in that case it would be just as likely that the Wraith could detect your presence."

Rodney glanced at the datapad in his hand, "Actually, Kusanagi has data suggesting the Jumper cloak would hide Teyla's efforts the same as any of the other sensing devices we intend to use."

From her position behind Rodney and without looking up from her work, Miko nodded.

John wondered how Miko had that data at her fingertips so fast. He was a little surprised no one else questioned it, but he wouldn't have before Miko's question about Hiveships being sentient and his most recent visit to the control chair. He wondered how much he'd been missing and if Atlantis was allowing her efforts to become more apparent now that several of them knew she was more than just a city. He also worried about how long it would take before someone noticed who would make trouble.

#

Rodney had no idea why Ronon showed up in the Jumper with them. They were delivering a fake seed with a crystal core to a possibly sentient Hiveship. The plan called for staying in a cloaked Jumper and watching—no action, no fighting. But Rodney had long ago learned not to question what Ronon decided to do. Maybe it was a team thing. Rodney had never understood why, but with John and Teyla both present, even if they also had Miko along, it seemed almost fitting that Ronon be there as well.

After the seed was released, Rodney checked the long range scanners and announced, "Our target Hiveship is adjusting course. Intercept in two hours."

"And the other Hives?' John asked.

"Too soon to tell, but none of them could reach here in under a day. They started from points spread out across an entire galaxy and the next closest to Atlantis has an approach vector nowhere near this gate. The bots could tell you the projected arrival times." He waved to the bots who'd taken positions on the console in what Rodney had once suspected to be bizarrely shaped Ancient cup holders.

"No, thanks," John stretched in his seat, and an inch of skin showed at his waist. "Want me to rub your shoulders?"

"What?" Rodney hated the high pitch he hit with the word and brought his voice back to normal as he continued. "I realize everyone here knows we're involved and we haven't had time to discuss our viewpoints on PDAs, but we're working. We're waiting for a Hiveship to test our current best hope to save Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy—"

Rodney's tablet beeped. He glanced down to see a note from Miko reading, "We're sitting in a tin can for two hours. Loosen up and give the Colonel an excuse to move around and touch you."

He was lifting his hands to type a response when he heard Ronon laughing over his shoulder. "Don't you know it's rude to read someone's private messages?"

"Practice reading English," Ronon replied and then surprised Rodney even more by saying to Miko, "Could I rub your shoulders?"

Miko's eyes went wide before she smiled and nodded. Ronon moved and Miko shifted until just a moment later the huge man was gently grasping her shoulders.

"Now is it okay?" John drawled.

"You're flying the jumper."

"It's set to maintain course and speed relative to the device we released. If you don't want this, just say so. I'll ask Teyla next."

Rodney felt a strange tightening in his stomach at the thought of John touching Teyla and Ronon touching Miko. There were so many times Rodney had been the one left out. He'd focused on his work and told himself it was better not to waste his time. He didn't want to be touched or let himself relax like that in front of others anyway.

Except, this time, it was his lover asking. For once he wasn't being excluded as everyone's last choice or the only one without a significant other. If he wanted to let John do this for him while they waited, it wouldn't do any harm. Only with that thought did Rodney realize how much he'd like to have John touching him, even in such an innocent and public way.

In the most confident tone he could muster after such a conversation and delay he said, "Fine, if you need something to keep you busy."

John's "thanks" was dripping with sarcasm, but the humor covered some of the awkwardness as well. Shifting out of the pilot's seat, John positioned himself behind Rodney in a flash and started rubbing. The warmth and sureness of John's hands made Rodney relax almost instantly. What he was doing to Rodney's muscles had little to do with it. No one had ever affected Rodney that way before. The scientist tried to let himself enjoy it and ignore the part of his brain going off on a defensive rant about his independence and image as Head of Science.

"It is good to have this time to collect ourselves and reconnect," Teyla said. Rodney tried to tune her out. It was easier to stare out the front of the Jumper and pretend no one could see him relaxing under John's touch. But Teyla continued by saying, "I am pleased to finally see the two of you together and to know that regulations no longer stand in the way of your love for each other."

Rodney snorted. But as usual, he failed to dissuade Teyla from her train of thought.

"Surely you agree that the opportunities are favorable, Rodney?"

The use of his name on that final rising tone sent a stab of ice through Rodney. He trusted Teyla more than almost any woman in his life, but he couldn't stand anyone trying to question him in the current situation. As he was considering how to end the shoulder rub and if there was anything safe to say, he was surprised by John's words from behind him.

"Ya' know, maybe this isn't the best time for that conversation. Weren't there some stories you wanted to tell us about Torren and the other kids visiting the greenhouses and the marine biology labs?" John's voice was smooth and slow. Rodney didn't even want to know what look passed between John and Teyla. He closed his eyes and felt his breathing settle as Teyla eased into a peaceful story about her son.

#

There had been shoulder rubs and storytelling all around by the time John forced himself back into a tactical mindset and watched the new, smaller nutshell stick to and start to be absorbed by the latest Hiveship. There was very little John could observe once the shell disappeared. He glanced around the cabin at Rodney in the co-pilot seat, muttering and tapping through screens on the Jumper and his laptop and a tablet. Teyla sat behind Rodney and calmly watched Miko who was also tapping away frantically behind John.

Ronon was sitting in back sharpening his knives. He'd shown up for the mission and John hadn't seen any reason to send him away. As it turned out, the man's skills with his hands had been useful in the shoulder rub debate, so John thought it was a fine command decision.

Rodney's muttering rose to actual speech. "Readings show the device is in position, but there's nothing to show if it's working. If the Hiveship is using the instructions to make a communications device, there should be some indication by now." Rodney's laptop beeped. "What?" He glanced back at Miko while actually typing faster. "That doesn't make any sense."

"What's doesn't make any sense, McKay?" John asked.

There was no answer, and then a tactical display popped up to show Darts emerging from the Hiveship. "McKay, is there a problem I should know about?"

"No," the physicist answered without looking up. "Something is happening to the composition of the Hiveship's hull. It should be an insignificant change, but it seems to be losing silicon. Bots, how much silicon was required for the plans we sent?"

"Six point three ounces," Spock Two replied.

"And the hull has lost about half that so far. It's a miniscule amount. We know Wraith consoles contain silicon. It shouldn't have been a problem, but perhaps the Hiveship couldn't access that source for some reason."

"Are the darts looking for us?" John asked. They seemed to be circling the Hiveship, but there were four of them executing what could be a basic search maneuver. "They're unlikely to hit us if they start shooting at random, but if they communicate to other hives…" If this Hiveship warned the others about the Trojan horse strategy or that Atlantis was involved in some way, that would mean all out war with the Wraith. John had worked to stockpile supplies and set up extra defenses in the last few days, but there was no way they could stand up to the entire Wraith fleet. They weren't prepared for that kind of a war.

Ronon was out of his seat and looming behind Miko and Teyla. His hand rested on the hilt of a knife, but at the moment there was nothing to fight. John sympathized. He'd rather be fighting or actively piloting, but at the moment, they needed to sit tight and observe.

"They're probably looking for someone or something draining silicon from their hull," Rodney said.

"I'd give it back if I had it," John said as his eyes tracked the Darts.

Rodney's head tilted and he paused for just a moment. "Not a bad idea for model two, but not an option now."

"I could meditate and see what I pick up," Teyla said.

"Good idea, but just listening in." John said before craning his neck back to see Miko. "You're sure the cloak will hide Teyla from them?"

Miko nodded. Her mouth seemed to move silently as she typed. John shrugged and nodded to Teyla.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Ronan said.

Teyla nodded, and John figured that was another reason Ronon had come along. He wouldn't hesitate to stun Teyla if a Wraith somehow managed to take over her mind. They meant for this to just be recon, cloaked recon, but with what had happened in the past, they couldn't risk the Wraith seeing inside Teyla's head. The Athosian went to lie down in one of her traditional meditative positions. John turned to face forward, for whatever good it did them.

Four darts were searching around the Hiveship. Four more flew out and searched a wider area, but they were still circling the hive. Rodney was probably right about them searching for someone or something tampering with their hull.

One of the Darts turned and shot an energy weapon out into space. It wasn't clear if the pilot was shooting at shadows or if that was some sort of warning. "What's happening, Teyla? While cloaked, we can't take a direct shot like that."

John's fingers itched with inactivity as he waited. Finally Teyla replied, "I'm sorry, John. I am sensing nothing beyond the general presence of the Wraith telepathic network. Do you want me to try a more direct link?"

"The odds of us taking a direct hit at this distance," Rodney muttered without looking up, "with all the possible vectors into seemingly open space, are astronomical. And astrophysicists talk in orders of magnitude when discussing their breakfast cereal. Data Two, what are the odds?"

"Two point one times ten to the seventh to one, against," Data Two replied.

"Never tell me the odds." John's eye's flicked to see Rodney as he said it.

"You are not playing Han Solo right now," a corner of Rodney's mouth twitched up as he ranted. "It would be like hitting Earth's moon with a laser from Earth. It would take twenty million moons to fill the sky at the moon's average orbital radius and over twenty million Puddle Jumpers at this distance from that Hiveship."

"I know that," John said. Rodney met his eyes for just a second, offering that strange glimmer of respect that showed whenever he admitted John had a brain after all. "But I also know what one lucky hit could mean for this ship and everyone in it."

John hated not being able to protect his people or warn Atlantis. At least Ronon had the job of watching Teyla for Wraith possession. John knew his best course as pilot was to leave the ship cloaked at the distance they'd chosen for safe sensor reading. As Military Commander, he knew opening a wormhole now for communication or escape would only make Atlantis a target.

#

"Shut up then and let me work," Rodney said. It didn't matter that the Jumper was already silent except for their somewhat strained banter. He could practically feel John vibrating with worry beside him. He could hear Miko pounding on her tablet, trying to draw conclusions from too little data. She'd found the initial loss of silicon from the Hiveship's hull. She understood the code for the seed device better than anyone. While Rodney would never admit it out loud, he probably should have stayed on Atlantis to research back up plans. He could have spent weeks in the ARV either watching what other versions of himself had tried or programming other crystal seed prototypes.

His relationship with John wasn't good for Atlantis. Rodney knew he'd come on this mission partly to be with John. There was always the chance this would be their last day together. Of course, there might still be an emergency where Rodney was the only one who could save them from Jumper failure, whatever Miko deduced from the sensor reading. Rodney was rational enough to argue for his actions, but he was skeptical enough know the optimal use of his brain, and therefore the optimal use of one Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD. He could burn through his lifespan faster than those around him. They could benefit from his genius sooner rather than later, and his bots could take over in perpetuity once he was gone. The thought made him sad, but at least he'd be remembered well.

Then the data on the Jumper console changed. "What!" Rodney paged through screens of energy readings that didn't make sense. "They're powering up something. It seems to be fluctuating between the main energy weapon and the main drive engines. But the frequency for the engines is changing even as the power switches back and forth."

A cry came from the back of the Jumper. Rodney glanced back and saw Ronon pointing his blaster at Teyla. "Don't stun her yet. I need to know who's winning. These readings, they only make sense if two different sides are fighting for control. One wants to fight, though I don't think they know we're here. The other wants to fly away. That better be the Hiveship trying to follow our suggestions."

"Pain. Dying." Teyla's voice was a hoarse whisper. Rodney could picture the grimace on her face from the shape of the words, but he was busy watching the Hiveship engines recalibrate to an efficiency he hadn't seen in Wraith ships before.

"Children, feed," Teyla rasped. That didn't sound good.

"Should I stun her?" Ronon asked.

"No!" Rodney shouted.

He knew Ronon listened more to the almost simultaneous "no" from John.

Then Teyla started to thrash and Rodney looked back just long enough to see her go still. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

In the next moment, the Hiveship changed course.

"Darts are reentering the Hive." There was a pause and then John said, "It's moving away, away from Atlantis and the center of the Pegasus Galaxy. Does that mean your device worked?"

"Readings show the communications device was assembled as specified. But there's no way to tell if it was used as intended or if the Hiveship's truly sentient and in control now," Rodney said.

"I believe she is." Teyla spoke in her usual soft tones. "The Queen tried to destroy the growing throne as it took so long to build. The Hiveship had to deplete her own skin. It was painstaking work, but she was more than willing in order to speak to her children again. The one child, the Queen, had to die and her mother consumed her, making her mental and physical food for the others."

"Ick, our best solution promotes cannibalism," Rodney complained.

"Of Wraith," Ronon said. "Works for me."

Miko filled his computer screen with wallpaper of what he thought was a colorful rendition of the Donner party eating their dead behind an article on green algae with the headline "Cannibalism May Fuel the Future."

"There are cultures here," Teyla said, "that consume organs from their deceased relatives as part of their death rights. I could not condemn the Wraith for this. The feeling from the Hivemind was a promise of care and protection from a parent to her children. The Wraith seemed very receptive, as if a longing for that connection was natural to them."

"More natural than draining other lives through their hands?" John asked.

"I could not say." Teyla sat quietly as Rodney and Miko monitored what they could as the Hiveship accelerated away using her subtly refined engines.

#

The moment they landed back in Atlantis, Woolsey called the entire Jumper crew to a meeting. John called in Lorne, needing an update on city defenses. Zelenka and Parrish showed up as well. John noticed the scientists were all busy conferencing on their gadgets before everyone was even seated.

"Did it work?" Woolsey asked. John had never heard the man be so direct.

"The Hiveship left without incident, but there was some unusual Dart activity first. One shot was fired at no clear target," John reported.

"Could they have known you were there?" Woolsey glanced at Teyla as he asked.

"It was nowhere near us. From what Teyla said afterward, there may have been a battle for control between that Wraith Queen and her Hiveship. We're going to need contingencies for real aggression during the transition time. We also can't know if the Hiveship will always win. It's possible some Queens will figure out what's going on and form a coalition to—"

"No," Rodney interrupted. "We have enough silicon on hand to add six point three ounces to each nutshell. In the future, the assembly after the seed is absorbed should take less than sixty seconds with all materials readily available."

"Silicon?" Woolsey asked.

"The Hiveship might not be able to draw materials from internal consoles built by Wraith engineers rather than grown from the ship." Rodney projected a chart of components onto the ceiling.

Parrish spoke up, "The other materials we counted on are all used for growing the pods where Wraith hibernate and the cocoons they use to store their food. If silicon is the only bottleneck, we can include it like the pulp in a fruit."

"Howmuch will this delay our preparations?"

"Minutes," Zelenka said as he and the other scientist stood. "We have containment and shell ready to go. I will bring silicon from engineering supply storage."

Woolsey opened his mouth to speak but ended up chasing behind the parade of scientists. As the rest of the room fell in line John said, "Gotta love our geeks."

Lorne replied, "Yes, sir." John could only smile.

From that point on the scientists ran the show for days. The second test succeeded by military reckoning. The Hiveship in the new target location took in the device, and a short time later it headed out toward the edges of the Pegasus Galaxy.

The scientists kept working like they personally were at war. The parts John heard spoken out loud were about improving the distribution of silicon in the nutshells to reduce wobble in flight and some discussion of trace elements that sounded like an ad for children's vitamins. Mindful of the care and feeding of scientists, John arranged with Sergeant Banh to have the mess staff check on the coffee in the main labs and ARV room around the clock and to leave trays of healthy snacks right next to the coffee.

A week after their first test flight, seventy-two Hiveships had successfully taken in the nutlike devices and turned toward uninhabited solar systems at the outer edges of the galaxy as the instructions delivered with the seeds suggested. Parrish and Zelenka had produced and distributed enough for all the remaining Hives. It was just a waiting game, until one Hiveship picked up its nut and turned toward Atlantis instead of away. Unfortunately, that ship was only a day and a half out.

Before Woolsey could suck them into a meeting, John sought out Rodney and dragged him to the ARV room. "I need to see if this happened in other realities, what they tried, and what worked."

Rodney shook his arm free as they neared the ARV room. "First, even your regulation hobbled military pea brain should understand that there are an infinite number of possibilities and outcomes. Maybe if you can clearly focus on what you consider a useful outcome, you'll be able to see some alternate universes where it happened. But past evidence suggests you won't see anything useful. It's not like we can see what code they wrote for their devices or hear them discuss lessons learned. More importantly, why am I here? If you want to waste your time in that contraption, I'll call a minion to monitor the external console, but I have better things to do with my time."

"It won't take any time once we're inside."

"Look how much time we've wasted between my lab and here. And what do you mean by we!"

"It might take both of us to solve this, and we might understand different parts of whatever the ARV shows us. It worked pretty well the last time we tried it together."

"I am not screwing around with you in that machine with one of my minions watching us exit and with a Hive flying toward us."

John agreed, though he had to admit the idea tempted him. "No screwing around. Just a quick look at what might happen when that Hive arrives. It won't take even a moment."

Rodney protested how pointless the exercise was and shouted at the minion on ARV duty, but in the end, he followed John into the device. The scientist set the bots out beside their heads as both men laid back, and John shifted his arm so that Rodney laid a little closer beside him.

Perhaps it was Rodney's general pessimism or stubbornness that led to a dozen views of Atlantis being blown up before they started to see happy versions of themselves watching with their team and others as the last Hiveship left Atlantis and the human populations of Pegasus behind. As John tried to focus on those happy endings, he noticed a particularly pleased look on Teyla's face. From there he saw more and more images of Teyla in a strange viney chair that seemed to grow up from the floor in the Atlantis control room. Rodney shifted beside him and said, "Why would a control chair we designed for a Hiveship end up growing here?"

"Don't know, but it seems to work," John replied.

"Not always," Rodney answered, and they were treated to multiple images of Teyla slumped over or looking dejected, often followed by the city being destroyed.

"Enough, stop." John spoke aloud as he gave the mental command to end the images. He kept the hatch shut, so they were still living on borrowed time. He pulled Rodney closer until his lover turned on his side with his head on John's shoulder. "Let it go a minute and just rest."

"Let it go?" Rodney's voice rang loudly in the confined space, even though John knew it was mild by McKay standards. "You want me to watch the city explode as if for my dining enjoyment?"

"I guess the time you've spent in here is a lot like spending a year dead for tax purposes."

Rodney poked him in the shoulder. "I would tell your XO what a geek you truly are, except he's not enough of a geek to recognize the reference."

"He might surprise you. I'm pretty sure he's fallen for his geek too, but let's not go there. Now seriously, rest. We'll give our brains a chance to process what we saw and maybe even get a little sleep."

"Don't tell me you just wanted to cuddle?"

At that, John pulled Rodney's top leg and arm over him, "You're the one who said you didn't want to make out."

"My back will hate me if I fall asleep like this."

"Then I'll give you a backrub."

"Is that your answer to everything?"

"No, sometimes I want to make out. And right now, I want to sleep."

#

Rodney hated that he woke up with a dozen ideas for why they might grow a Hive Chair. He wasn't even as sore as usual, but he made John give him a backrub anyway. Then he went to consult his minions and Atlantis, trusting that John would make sure he was fed.

Two hours later he stomped into Woolsey's office. John and Teyla were already there, and he wondered how they knew and how they got there before him. He decided it was probably Atlantis' fault. Their research into growing their own communications device, which Rodney was insisting they call a Hive Chair, had gone much too easily given Rodney's previous experiences with the Ancient database.

Rodney set those thoughts aside and started in on the speech he'd planned to give Woolsey. "We need to put a Hive Chair in the control room. That's where the necessary connections are to grow one, and research in the Alternate Reality Viewer suggests we might need one to communicate with the Hiveship that's on its way here. Teyla has the most compatible genetics and skill set to operate the Hive Chair. However, if we do need to communicate directly, it will give away our position." Rodney dropped into the only empty chair and waved his arms wide. "It's unavoidable. At that point, we'll need to switch the city from cloak to shields. I've already confirmed that the relevant signals can pass through the shield without other risks. If worst comes to worst, we can either destroy the hive or fly Atlantis away."

"Are you here to ask me anything, Dr. McKay?" Woolsey asked.

"No, not really, because that would be stupid and might lead to destroying the city," Rodney replied.

"And that would be the crux of the matter. Do you have your upload bots with you, Dr. McKay?"

"Of course, they're in this bag with my laptop and other necessary tools." He patted the bag with one hand then gestured to Woolsey and the rest. "You do realize that's not what they're called? Cat bots or Directed Upload Devices, no abbreviations," he stressed to John, "or their names are all fine."

"Could you please put them someplace where they won't overhear our conversation?" Woolsey asked as if it were customary for everyone to leave bots outside the door.

"What, why?"

"Please, Dr. McKay."

He made a point of complaining about the pointlessness of the exercise the whole time while he complied. "There. Now what did you want to discuss with me that couldn't be discussed in the presence of a limited smart device that's training on me?"

"What we were discussing before you arrived is how smart those devices currently are and if there's something even smarter helping our science staff create Hiveship communications devices." Woolsey folded his hands on his desk.

"Really, you're asking this now?" Rodney jabbed at the air between them with his hands. "The devices are already distributed. If they're part of some alien plot then it's a bit late to worry about it now."

"I fully realize. That's why I'm questioning the next step of installing such a device on Atlantis."

"Do you have a better alternative to propose?" Rodney finally looked to Teyla and John for some indication of Woolsey's agenda, but both of them kept their eyes fixed on the man behind the desk.

"No. That is not my job. My job is to oversee the workings of this city. I like to know who's working for me, and if they're also working for anyone else."

Rodney could not believe the idiocy he had to deal with. If neither John nor Teyla were going to intervene, then Rodney decided he'd speak his mind. "You're deluded if you believe I would ever work solely for you or that any of my staff work solely for me. We work with others as well as we can, but we work for what we believe in, to keep ourselves and everyone here alive, to advance science, to satisfy our curiosity. Surely you have some useless social scientist or business major who could explain this while I get back to my job, say, saving the city from an approaching Hiveship?"

"Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey said, switching his attention without even a nod to Rodney, "correct me if I'm wrong, but based on past experiences and what you know of the city's current power levels and munitions, could the military protect us from the approaching Hiveship without the use of any new technology?"

John slouched deeper into his chair and answered slowly, "Almost certainly, but you're not the sort of leader to shoot first and ask questions later."

"Thank you, Colonel." Woolsey nodded politely and turned back to face Rodney. "Now, Dr. McKay, you made the point that you do not work solely for me or any other supervisor but for your own interests and self-determined goals. You also described your cat bots, as you wish them to be called, as training to think like you. So tell me, who do they work for?"

"If they worked solely at a person's command, they could be misused. I suspect our esteemed military commander," Rodney kicked John's foot and continued, "would tell you that no person is fully immune to outside control if tortured or blackmailed or whatever some governments use when they think they can get away with it." Rodney rolled his eyes at the time being wasted and tried to dumb his arguments down enough to convince Woolsey and protect Atlantis and his bots. "The challenge with smart machines or AI, as I thought we'd covered in a previous meeting, is much like nuclear energy. For good or for bad, by the time we knew what to worry about, it was inevitable that someone would find ways to build a bomb and sometime there would be a major accident. The best we could do was act intelligently along the way to limit the risks and build in some protections. Much as I don't always think well of the Ancients, they did understand the basics of what we sometimes call 'friendly AI,' meaning transparent, robust, and stable systems. The cat bots are designed better than I trust Earth scientists to do right now in all three of those regards, and these bots at a level where I and at least some of my minions can understand their base programming. If there are more advanced systems in Atlantis that we might deem intelligent, at least we know they grew out of the same research base that created the cat bots and they don't seem to have hurt us or Atlantis so far."

"So you're saying, we should trust in our betters?" Woolsey asked, somehow without sounding sarcastic.

"I'm saying it's what you've done every day since you arrived here. This is certainly not the time to question it." Rodney pushed up from his chair hoping to end the discussion and get back to work.

"Dr. McKay, please sit down, unless you are withdrawing your suggestion about the Hive Chair, as I believe you named it."

"This is why I should always be in charge of naming things," John said with a strained smile as Rodney dropped back into his seat.

"May I make a suggestion?" Teyla asked.

"By all means, Ms. Emmagan. We would value your input," Woolsey said.

"While I do not have any particular insights about intelligent machines, I'm wondering if it matters whether a being is what we consider to be living or machine. I was brought to this meeting to discuss the possibility of communicating with a Hiveship. I am happy to offer my abilities and assistance, but it is unclear to me whether in this case I would be speaking with a living being, a machine, or both. Is there a reason why that should matter?"

"Perhaps." Woolsey met her eyes and her clam tone. "When you were first dealing with the Genii, would it have made a difference to know they were not the simple farmers they appeared to be?"

"Exactly." Teyla nodded. "It seems the question of intentions and honesty would matter far more in a negotiation than whether one is conversing with human, machine, or something else."

"Point taken, and I wonder if you would answer candidly on one other matter." Woolsey paused long enough for Teyla to raise one eyebrow and then continued. "If there is a being more intelligent that the cat bots operating in Atlantis, a city that ATA gene carriers interact with through mental communication, do you think you would have noticed if your teammates with the ATA gene were being influenced by this unseen force?"

Teyla smiled as if she and Woolsey were agreeing rather than arguing. "I was under the impression that parts of Atlantis lit up for John from the moment he stepped through the Stargate. If you can all see the lights go on, in what way is that an unseen force? If it takes time to establish communication or determine the attributes, including intelligence, of all parties involved, isn't that a normal part of diplomacy?"

"So you think the city is intelligent?" Woolsey asked.

Teyla tilted her head to the side as if thinking. "I often find Tau'ri concepts of intelligence hard to comprehend. But if we focus on communications, it does appear those with the ATA gene have always had at least one way communications with the machines here. I have heard that the Puddle Jumpers offered amenities to Colonel Sheppard when he did not know exactly what to ask for and the Control Chair showed him weapons he did not know about or clearly understand. I am not sure if this meets your people's criteria for intelligent machines, but it reminds me of how people come to know each other a little at a time. The fact that you are only now worrying about the intelligence of those with whom you've been communicating for years may suggest they have recently offered you too much trust rather than too little."

"So your opinion is that we should trust Atlantis to put us in communication with a Hiveship?" Woolsey sat back in his chair, but his words sounded even more clipped than usual. Rodney hoped that meant Teyla was winning, and he hoped she would win soon, because he hated the waste of time.

"When Elizabeth accepted video calls from the Genii using technology you found here, was she trusting Atlantis to put your people in communication with them?"

Woolsey paused and steepled his fingers. "It is possible that there is some intelligence in Atlantis now that we were not dealing with before."

"So long as you're not referring to yourself," Rodney couldn't help but add.

Woolsey ignored him and kept his focus on Teyla. "If you place yourself in the communication device Dr. McKay is proposing, you realize you will be exposing yourself to not just the potentially intelligent Hiveship but also to whatever forces in Atlantis might be pushing for this outcome."

Teyla smiled in a way that could still dazzle Rodney no matter what he had with John. It was also a slightly scary smile. If the expression had any effect on Woolsey, he hid it well. "I appreciate your concern, Mr. Woolsey, but remember, I have willingly opened my mind to Wraith, even to a Wraith Queen. I will not shy away from communication or diplomacy because of the risk."

As the meeting finally ended, Rodney had no idea what had changed Woolsey's mind. The inductive inference systems of diplomats were as alien to him as those of Wraith or Hiveships. But that wasn't his problem. He needed to oversee the construction of a Hive Chair in the control room.

First, he made sure there would be primitive manual power cut offs that could, if necessary, stop a sentient city from reconnecting to the Hive Chair. Radek reassembled the large containment box they'd used while scanning the nutlike devices. It was positioned to surround the chair such that closing the back would cut off almost any signal passing in or out of the box. Teyla excused herself to meditate and asked them to call her if she was needed. John assigned security and sleep shifts, but Rodney refused to sleep. He made it through the night on caffeine and curiosity.

#

John didn't sleep well. It wasn't his place to tell the Head of Science to take a sleep shift. But the Head of Science happened to be his boyfriend. Other nights he'd slept fine without him. But that night, with the Wraith on their doorstep and the scientists once again leading their defense, John could only sleep in fits and starts. After four hours he walked an inspection of all the heightened security and defense measures he and Lorne had set up. He found every one of his people where they were supposed to be. Even after a week of approaching Hiveships not bringing the fight to them, they were all awake, at their posts, and on task.

In the control room, it was harder to tell how everyone was doing. Radek and Woolsey had sensibly gone off to sleep. Those monitoring sensor stations and other routine tasks seemed happy to talk to John. They assured him the approaching Hiveship was holding course and speed. It should arrive in four hours.

Rodney and Miko sat on the floor on opposite sides of the new Hive Chair and its boxy enclosure. Each had at least one laptop and one tablet as well as assorted other electronics scattered around them. Rodney's bots sat on either side of him, and John was a little jealous.

"You want anything from the mess?" John asked.

Neither Rodney nor Miko looked up. John shrugged and went to walk another circuit of his city.

By the time the Hiveship came into weapons range, John was in the control room. He'd assigned Lorne to the chair room mostly because he didn't expect they'd need to fly or defend the city. Only a small part of his decision was based on Teyla and Rodney needing to stay with the Hive Chair. Ronon was guarding the Gate below them, just in case.

The entire senior staff had agreed to keep the city cloaked until the incoming Hiveship showed its intentions. There was always a chance it was just checking the origin of the first signal and would go on its way after that. The sensors tracked the Hive until it was just outside the atmosphere but on the opposite side of planet from Atlantis. That was when it released sixteen Darts and John gave the order to switch to shields and give up hiding.

John nodded to Woolsey who surprised him by staying silent, so John said, "Teyla, you want to try making friends before anyone starts shooting at us?"

Teyla sat back in the chair and closed her eyes. John was surprised to hear her speak out loud and wondered if it was for Woolsey's benefit or for everyone's. "Greetings. I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan. What brings you to this planet?"

A moment later Teyla cringed and brought her hands to her head. Radek was already lifting the back of the box to cut off signal when she panted out, "Please, this is too much. I am mostly human."

There was a long pause. John hovered in front of the weapons console. Radek kept hold of the back panel from the box. Rodney and Miko tapped at devices on either side of Teyla. When Rodney took a deep breath and seemed to relax a little, John knew something was coming through.

Finally Teyla spoke again. "I regret that there is no way for you to speak directly with our ship. Our ways are not the same as yours, and while I am pledged to this ship, I am not born of it. I am a mother myself, of a human child… His name is Torren…He lives with me on this ship… If you want company, perhaps it would be best to follow the other ships like yourself."

John tried to guess ahead from the one-sided conversation he was listening to. While the Darts seemed to continue searching the planet, the Hiveship itself moved to directly above Atlantis.

"Hive within weapons range, sir," the Sergeant assigned to the weapons station reported.

"Hold your fire," John replied.

Meanwhile, Teyla seemed to be explaining several generations of her family tree and why only she, Torren and Kanaan lived on this ship. It didn't escape John's notice that she never named Atlantis.

There was a long break where John wondered what the Hiveship was communicating in reply. Then Teyla said, "I am not a Queen. We have never had those distinctions here. I am someone who is curious about others and for whom this communication device will work…I do not seek to keep anyone from communicating with this ship. There are many ways in which others here communicate with our ship better than I can, but the device to communicate with you is new and does not work for them…Yes, I believe I am a bit more like your children than many here… No, I would not want to leave my ship, but I thank you for the offer…I prefer to keep my child with me as you prefer to keep yours with you… While I would welcome your friendship, I agree with others here that your children and mine will not work well together now, when the memory of so many deaths is still fresh…I understand your curiosity, but isn't the welfare of your children at least as important?"

There was another long pause.

"All Darts are heading this way, sir," the weapons officer reported.

John watched them approach. Unless they knew a trick to punch through Atlantis' shields, the Darts were not much of a threat. Repeated fire from their weapons could weaken a portion of the city's shield, but the weapons on the Hiveship were the real danger.

Finally Teyla spoke again. "I am sorry you cannot speak to our city. Perhaps in several human generations when you return you will be able to communicate and discuss your shared lineage. The time will not be long as you measure such things, and it will mean a great deal to my children and my children's children."

The Darts flew back into the Hiveship, but John kept vigilant in case it was a trick.

"I will pass on all that you have told me to the ones who can communicate best with our ship. Thank you and safe voyage."

That was it. The Hiveship left.

Teyla came out of the Hive Chair and its containment box with her head held high.

Woolsey nodded to her and said, "This is a victory for communication and diplomacy." If his glance toward McKay suggested something less than flattering, John didn't care because his scientist didn't notice. John would make sure to show the scientists some appreciation later. Maybe he could even offset his debt to Radek for educating the troops.

John assigned two different teams to monitor the withdrawal of the Hiveship that had come to them as well as the ones from farthest out that were still picking up the last of the nutshell devices the scientists had made. It looked like the war had ended without a shot being fired.

#

Rodney couldn't shut his mind off just because the war with the Wraith might be over. He had a lot of projects he'd put on hold. Even after assigning his bots to check through some of the more routine facility logs for him, Rodney anticipated several days' worth of catching up.

It wasn't fair that John brought coffee and cake when he dropped by the lab. The cake was real and had chocolate butter cream frosting, as if John wasn't enough of a distraction on his own.

"…So you could give me access to the other overlays on your map."

"What? Were you talking? I was busy working. See." Rodney waved broadly at the three screens in front of him. "If you wait a few days, I might catch up on other work, and then maybe I can get back to the map project."

"Maybe one of the bots could help me with the map while you work." John rested a hand on the bot nearest to him, Data Two.

"The bots are busy keeping us all safe by checking the city logs for anomalies over the last couple weeks when some of us were distracted with crazy Hiveship seeds and so on."

"Pleeeease, Rodney." John was leaning with his ass on Rodney's desk and saying please while Rodney ate the cake and coffee he had brought. It occurred to Rodney that not only did John, Ronon, Carson, Teyla, and sometimes even Miko make sure he ate, the food they brought wasn't always about keeping him productive and staving off hypoglycemia. Making sure he didn't miss out on cake, party food, or even food served in a way he could manage with injured hands—that all implied a level of concern or affection.

"I just want to look at the medical overlay," John continued.

That stopped Rodney with his fork in front of his mouth. "Wait, the medical overlay? Why?"

John rubbed the back of his neck, and Rodney started to worry a little. "I have some paperwork I won't be able to put off much longer, and I don't like what I'd have to write on it."

"Stackhouse." Rodney had the medical overlay up with his map in the moment his brain put the pieces together. "What should I search on?"

"Paralysis? Spinal injury?"

Rodney tried, but there were too many hits. He quickly hacked into Stackhouse's recent medical records. "Bots, based on this report, what else would you search on the medical overlay to identify technology that might help Sergeant Stackhouse?"

Spock Two said, "Spinal compression, spinal fusion…" He listed twenty terms that Rodney typed just as fast, before cutting him off.

Then Data Two said, "The details for what you call the 'new large scanner room.'"

Rodney paused, "Explain."

"That lab focused on developing full body prosthetics. The injury described fits parameters for the large scanner's diagnostic capabilities. After diagnosis, equipment needed for treatment will be listed and will most likely be found in that room."

Rodney almost asked if Atlantis had helped Data Two with that idea. But the bot was designed to avoid such interference. It was impressive enough that the bot's inductive inference had found that connection before any of the humans involved had noticed. It made Rodney wondered if other scanners might also have worked for the Hiveship seeds but Atlantis had pushed them toward that particular room with a secondary goal in mind. Rodney patted Data Two and radioed Carson, "Dr. Beckett, could you meet me in the lab with the new large scanner?"

Carson replied, "Can it wait five minutes?"

"Yes, of course, I have nothing better to do with my time than wait until you finish removing some incompetent's splinter or hangnail," Rodney replied.

"You could send me to help Dr. Beckett," Data Two volunteered.

"Are you saying you're ready to work independently?" Rodney asked.

"I am ready to work independently. I am also ready to work with Dr. Beckett to help Sergeant Stackhouse."

Rodney tapped his radio again. "Beckett, Data Two will meet you at the infirmary and accompany you to the new scanner." He set Data Two on the floor and watched his metal minion scoot away.

John leaned ridiculously across Rodney's desk to whisper in his ear. "If we leave Spock Two looking over the logs, you could come with me for some Jumper recon and sensor testing."

"Why would either of us need to do that?"

"Well," John's breath was warm and damp and right on Rodney's ear, "We did have a Hiveship and Darts in orbit. And you and I haven't been alone in a Jumper since 'don't ask, don't tell' was repealed."

Rodney had a cutting reply complete with rant in mind when John's tongue traced the shell of his ear. All he could manage was a weak wave of his arm and the single word, "Working."

John pulled back a few inches as if he was trying not to play too much on Rodney's biological weaknesses. "You've trained two bots to help with that. You've given up several extra weeks of your life in the ARV machine. I think it's time to appreciate that you are more than just a thinking machine assigned here to solve problems."

"But that's what I'm best at."

John leaned in very close again and rested a warm hand on Rodney's shoulder. "You may have the best scientific mind in two galaxies, but that mind is not all I want in my Jumper. By the way, did you know the Jumper seats can vibrate if I ask them nicely?"

"Why would the Ancients design—"

John smirked and pulled Rodney up from his chair.

In the transporter he kissed Rodney sweetly before leading him to the Jumper with their hands brushing every step of the way.

As they circled outward through the skies above Atlantis John demonstrated the vibrating seats while his hand rested lightly in Rodney's lap. Rodney's cock filled rapidly under the faint, warm touch and vibration. It didn't promote an efficient use of time or of the best scientific brain in two galaxies.

It felt so good.

When Rodney had run enough sensor scans to please even Woolsey, he turned to John and said, "There is no Wraith threat in the vicinity, also, no minions in the Jumper."

John smiled like a kid with no intention of removing his hand from the cookie jar. He unbuttoned his uniform shirt and let it slide down his arms to the floor. His tee shirt followed over his head. Then John moved to stand half naked between the two front chairs as he unfastened his pants, and Rodney saw the silly flyboy was already barefoot.

In that moment, looking at John's stupid bare toes, Rodney knew he'd been in love with his best friend for years. What mattered even more, John had stayed his best friend and loved him back even when Rodney had distanced himself and thought he didn't need any other people in his life. It was something Rodney knew he needed to tell John, not in the moment, but later, when they could both be sure he meant it.

As John's pants pooled around his feet, Rodney looked up to find his lover naked and fully erect. As John turned to step around his pants on the floor, Rodney caught a glimpse— "Are you wearing a butt plug?"

John raised his eyebrows and smiled, but kept a few inches between them. "I found it in your nightstand and thought you might want me to ride your lap as we watched the stars."

"How long have you been working on this Jumper sex fantasy?" Rodney asked as he slid his pants and boxers down and then pulled John into his lap.

John squirmed in Rodney's lap and rubbed at his nipples through the uniform shirt he still wore. "Until you opened me with a dildo, it hadn't occurred to me that you'd bring anything like this to Atlantis, so that part's new. But let's just say I discovered the Jumper seats could vibrate during a long solo flight our second year in Atlantis."

"And you never thought to tell me?"

"I thought about it a lot." John twisted sideways to take Rodney's mouth in a wet and filthy kiss as his hip pressed against Rodney's straining cock.

Rodney moaned and panted into the kiss, losing himself in the taste and smell of John so close and so hot. Then he felt John slide a pre-lubed condom down his cock and all he wanted was to feel his lover surround him.

Sliding a hand along John's thigh to his ass, Rodney nudged the butt plug until John let out a grunt and Rodney knew he'd hit the right spot. As he worked the toy back and forth, John panted into his mouth and writhed on his lap. When neither of them could hold off much longer, Rodney pulled the plug out and guided John back onto his cock. Everything was perfect, tight and hot. Rodney wrapped his arms to hold John in place, and they both stared out at the planet below.

For a moment they sat suspended.

Then John began to rock. Rodney kissed his back and stroked his thighs. Without any words they pulled each other up and held each other down. They made it last an entire orbit. Then neither could hold back any longer. Rodney thrust up with all the leverage he could manage as John jolted himself to a frantic rhythm. When John shuddered and spasmed around him, Rodney came at the same time. Then he held John close for as long as he could stay inside.

When he finally slipped out, John cleaned them both up. He pulled up Rodney's pants before dressing himself with military efficiency. Rodney was back in control of his wits and his senses by the time John calmly sat down in the pilot's seat and reached across to hold hands, as if this was something they did every day.

The last straw fell when John ordered the Jumper to filter and cycle the air to remove scents. Rodney started laughing and couldn't stop.

After sixty seconds of laughter, some of it mutual, John said, "Is it really that funny?"

"No, it's you. It's—" Then all of a sudden, inappropriate or not, the moment arrived. "I love you," Rodney said, smiling but no longer laughing.

John was out of his seat and kissing Rodney instantly. "I love you, too." They stayed together, with John back in Rodney's lap, for another two orbits.

#

Data Two: "Preliminary tests complete. Device prepared for full body scan and diagnosis."

Dr. Beckett: [Shorter pause than average. Implied excitement.] "Sergeant Markham, Nurse Page, if you could help me move Sergeant Stackhouse on the count of three. One, two, three." [Transfer complete. Beckett, Page and gurney move to safe distance. Markham touches hand to patient's face. Implied concern.]

Data Two: "Sergeant Markham is not at a safe distance."

Sgt. Markham: "Sorry." [Apology as polite placeholder. Markham moves to safe distance.]

Dr. Beckett: "Are you ready, lad?" [Stackhouse nods.] "Starting scan." [Full body scan and diagnosis takes 326 seconds as per device specifications.] "Amazing."

Sgt. Markham: [Markham moves beside Beckett. Stackhouse breathes faster. Implied anxiety or excitement.] "What does it mean?"

Dr. Beckett: "Give me a minute, son." [Beckett touches Markham on shoulder. Implied concern. Beckett turns to face Data Two.] "Data Two, can you report on the availability and any relevant data about devices listed on this screen?" [Beckett points to treatment recommendations on main screen.]

Data Two: "All devices listed are in this room and have no visible faults or power supply issues. Complete device diagnostics as per device recommendations projected to take 4.6 hours. Treatments listed projected to take 2.1 hours. Recommended recovery time in bed is 35.3 hours. Full function of legs and spine with suggested physiological and electrical therapies estimated as 228.7 hours."

Sgt. Markham: "Doc, did it just say Stacks will be walking again in less than ten days?"

Dr. Beckett: "With a few caveats, yes. That's what we're going to try for."

Sgt. Stackhouse: "Oh my god." [Markham moves to Stackhouse. Markham kisses Stackhouse. Implied affection.]

Dr. Beckett: [Beckett squats and pats Data Two. Implied concern.] "Data Two, are you supposed to report back to McKay now?"

Data Two: [Presses gently against Beckett's hand. Implied affection.] "Dr. McKay is unavailable and circumstances suggest he prefers to wait for reports. I am ready to work independently or with you. I am also ready to work with Spock Two to check city logs."

Dr. Beckett: "I wondered about that. McKay thinks the Ancients planned bots like you in pairs as a security or error checking mechanism. But maybe they didn't want you to be the only one of your kind, didn't want you to be alone. What do you think?"

Data Two: "I think many things. I found this solution for Sergeant Stackhouse. I can work independently, with humans, or with Spock Two. I can think of myself as the only one of my kind, as one of two cat bots, or as one of many scientists, Canadians, Lanteans, or Tau'ri."

Dr. Beckett: [Rests hand on Data Two. Implied affection.] "You may be more like Rodney than he cares to admit. I look forward to working with you and helping with whatever I can."


End file.
